Sun
26 May
2019

Spring has also arri­ved in arc­tic Spits­ber­gen. Ear­ly migra­ting birds such as the snow bun­ting and Litt­le auk came alre­a­dy more than a month ago in April, fil­ling the tun­dra in and around Lon­gye­ar­by­en respec­tively the moun­tain slo­pes with their sin­ging (snow bun­ting) and cra­zy laugh­ter (snow bun­ting).

Tem­pe­ra­tures are still cold, mild frost, but the snow-free tun­dra patches are gro­wing every day and the rivers show signs of brea­king up.

Tun­dra is coming through the snow in Advent­da­len.

By now, most migra­ting birds have retur­ned to their sum­mer ter­ri­to­ries. A good week ago, the first Pink-foo­ted geese were sud­den­ly sit­ting, well camou­fla­ged, on the tun­dra next to the roads in Lon­gye­ar­by­en, and the first Bar­na­cle geese fol­lo­wed soon.

Brent geese on the shore of Advent­fjord (a Bar­na­cle goo­se in the back­ground).

Once the first geese had arri­ved, dozens and hundreds fol­lo­wed during the next cou­ple of days to sett­le down on snow-free tun­dra are­as in Advent­da­len and even within Lon­gye­ar­by­en. In this area, the snow melt starts regu­lar­ly a cou­ple of weeks ear­ly than else­whe­re in Spits­ber­gen, making the tun­dra are­as here an important res­t­ing area for many birds, which feed on tun­dra vege­ta­ti­on, after their spring migra­ti­on. Later they will disper­se to their various bree­ding are­as within the regi­on.

Brent geese on the shore of Advent­fjord (Pink-foo­ted geese in the fore­ground).

Curr­ent­ly, it is very easy to obser­ve all geese spe­ci­es that breed in Spits­ber­gen as well as Com­mon eider ducks, King eider and many otehr spe­ci­es very clo­se to or even within Lon­gye­ar­by­en. Soon they will move to more inac­ces­si­ble are­as and then most of them will also be very shy. Then, it will be much more dif­fi­cult, if not impos­si­ble, to secu­re good obser­va­tions and pho­tos, even with good equip­ment.

Espe­ci­al­ly the Brent goo­se is a dif­fi­cult spe­ci­es to obser­ve. It is not an ever­y­day sight during the sum­mer and obser­va­tions are usual­ly from a grea­ter distance. So it is a spe­cial plea­su­re to see this spe­ci­es on a short distance on the shore of Advent­fjord just next to Lon­gye­ar­by­en. As long as you stay a bit hid­den or within a car, the risk of dis­tur­ban­ce is low.

All three spe­ci­es of geese that breed in Spits­ber­gen in one pho­to:
Pink foo­ted goo­se, Bar­na­cle goo­se and Brent goo­se, Advent­fjord.

I am almost a bit proud of this last pho­to that has all three spe­ci­es of geese that breed in Spits­ber­gen in one frame: Pink foo­ted goo­se (upper left, not sharp), Bar­na­cle goo­se (lower left) and Brent goo­se (lower right).

Thu
9 May
2019

The win­ter sea­son is now, in ear­ly May or actual­ly soon mid May, about to come to an end, but we are curr­ent­ly having beau­tiful days, after an April that was part­ly quite, well, mixed. Now we having tem­pe­ra­tures below zero again – but not much, it is not too cold – and it is nice and sun­ny at times. Good reasons to get out the­re and enjoy the ama­zing ice- and snow land­scape, once again in win­ter mode.

Spring is not far away any­mo­re in Spits­ber­gen: Ptar­mi­gan and reinde­er are hap­py about spots of snow-free tun­dra.

We move rather effi­ci­ent­ly trough the val­leys to the east. Advent­da­len, Eskerd­a­len and Sas­send­a­len, one by one, like perls on a neck­lace. We lea­ve them quick­ly behind, as we want to tra­vel far this time.

At Rabot­breen we enter the wide gla­cier land­scapes of east Spits­ber­gen. The huge morai­ne of Rabot­breen also shows signs of the approa­ching spring, ici­c­les are han­ging in small ice holes and caves. The sun is strong enough to make some ice melt even when tem­pe­ra­tures are actual­ly still below the free­zing point.

Litt­le ice cave in the morai­ne of Rabot­breen.

Ici­c­les in an ice hole at Rabot­breen.

We lea­ve also this inte­res­t­ing landc­sape quick­ly behind us, and soon we turn north, devia­ting from the popu­lar and bel­oved rou­te across Nord­manns­fon­na towards Mohn­buk­ta on the east coast. This time, we want to go fur­ther north.

Hea­ding north across Fim­bu­li­sen.

All we have around us is snow, ice and moun­ta­ins. The land­scape appears infi­ni­te­ly wide. Coas­tal and tun­dra land­scapes have dis­ap­peared far behind us. Ins­tead, the­re is one gla­cier after the other, one small ice cap neigh­bou­ring the next one. Well, they are not exact­ly small. Of cour­se they can’t com­pe­te with tho­se in Green­land and even Ant­ar­c­ti­ca, but still, we are tal­king hundreds of squa­re kilo­me­t­res. Fim­bu­li­sen, Filch­ner­fon­na, Lomo­no­sov­fon­na … the lat­ter one is the source to the migh­ty gla­ciers Nor­dens­ki­öld­breen and Mit­tag-Leff­ler­breen. Lomo­no­sov­fon­na is 600 squa­re kilo­me­t­res lar­ge!

Infi­ni­te spaces: the ice cap Lomo­no­sov­fon­na.

Our desti­na­ti­on: New­ton­top­pen. This is Spitsbergen’s hig­hest moun­tain, 1713 met­res high. Or to be clear: the hig­hest moun­tain of Sval­bard, the who­le archi­pe­la­go. 1713 met­res are, of cour­se, not very impres­si­ve, com­pared to the lar­ge moun­tain ran­ges of this world. But it is far away … get­ting the­re is the first thing, and even on a love­ly spring day like this, it is pret­ty cold.

New­ton­top­pen comes into our view.

For me, it is the second tour to New­ton­top­pen. The first time was in 2010. Back then, the two of us used ski, pulk and tent, some­thing that took us almost 4 weeks through this vast land­scape. Today, we are fas­ter.

New­ton­top­pen with a deco­ra­ti­ve cloud.

Back then, we were a bit more lucky with the wea­ther on New­ton­top­pen: today, the top remains in a thin cloud, alt­hough it is lar­ge­ly fine and clear other­wi­se.

New­ton­top­pen is not a dif­fi­cult moun­tain to ascend, it is “only” far away – and cold.

The top of New­ton­top­pen with clouds and stor­my wind.

The wind on top of New­ton­top­pen is strong and it is ice cold, near -20 degrees of cen­ti­gra­de – plus wind­chill. So it is not exact­ly pic­nic time up here, but we enjoy being here, hig­her than any­whe­re else on Spits­ber­gen, for some moments.

And the view is clea­ring up just a few met­res fur­ther down. The­re is a should­er in about 1500 met­res whe­re the gra­ni­te is coming to the sur­face. From here, we have got an impres­si­ve view over the sur­roun­ding moun­ta­ins and ice fields.

View from New­ton­top­pen to the south.

The way back home is a long one … more than 300 kilo­me­t­res in total, from Lon­gye­ar­by­en to New­ton­top­pen and back.