Mon
24 Jul
2017

Bet­ween the trip with Anti­gua and the upco­ming one with Arc­ti­ca II, I have got a cou­ple of days to get some wri­ting done. Soon, the Spits­ber­gen calen­dar 2018 and my new book about „Arc­tic christ­mas sto­ries“ will be rea­dy to print!

Of cour­se, the­re is still time for a litt­le tour every now and then. You don’t always have to go far to see a lot. To be pre­cise, I don’t even have to lea­ve the sofa (but I still do, occa­sio­nal­ly) to see arc­tic sku­as and Bar­na­cle geese on the tun­dra. The chicks of both are also around. The­re are at least two leu­ci­stic (most­ly white) Bar­na­cle geese around, an adult and a chick.

If you are a com­mon eider, then this is a dan­ge­rous area to be. The arc­tic sku­as feed on eider duck eggs, and their con­tents were cer­tain­ly almost rea­dy for hat­ching by now, just to be torn to pie­ces by fero­cious birds, who resem­ble T-rex’s during that pro­cess, just a bit smal­ler. Well, also the arc­tic sku­as and their chicks need to feedn on some­thing, but not being a com­mon eider is a good thing.

A bit fur­ther into Advent­da­len, the­re is a red-throa­ted diver with chicks on the nest. I have never befo­re taken a fami­ly foto of a red-throa­ted diver! And in this gre­at light!

Gal­lery – Lon­gye­ar­by­en – mid July 2017

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

The­re are flowers ever­y­whe­re now in Lon­gye­ar­by­en. The Sval­bard but­ter­cup, quite rare in the past, is spre­a­ding now in some places in town; it is actual­ly quit abun­dant now in some loca­ti­ons. And the famous cot­ton grass is rea­dy again for its role as a popu­lar, post­card-pro­of pho­to object.