June 29-July 11, 2025 with Marcelo Barreiros
This tour is different from every other one I’ve ever led, with completely different habitats and wildlife, except for 3 or 4 species also present in South America. The summer in the Arctic is beautiful, when life looks for reasons to keep going on, with flowers blooming and wildlife breeding again. The weather was very generous with us with no heavy rain and just a couple of days of fog overall. The Arctic wildlife still persists, even with the quick deterioration of the habitat all over the region. Some of the highlights were the Arctic landscapes, several individuals of Ivory Gulls, an Arctic Fox stealing eggs from the Barnacle Goose, five Polar Bears, and a group of Walruses. We started with some nice birding along the road which goes to the mines outside of Longyearbyen, passing by the dog city. During the few hours of birding in town, we managed to see big groups of Barnacle Goose, and while we were watching one of these groups, an Arctic Fox worked really hard to get one of the eggs, and did it after visiting several nests. As the island does not have any raptors, the Glaucous Gull takes the job and those birds are very effective. We saw this huge gull coming down to the ground and swallowing Barnacle Goose chicks in a single bite a few times, so the Barnacle Goose does not have an easy life on the island. A few Purple Sandpiper, Common Eider, Northern Fulmar, several Arctic Tern and a group of Green-winged Teal were also seen by the end of the road.
As soon as we got aboard our vessel, M/V Plancius, the tour became different in a very good way. Our first Dovekies, Atlantic Puffins, Black Guillemots, and more Northern Fulmars started to fly near us along the Northern Sea. We made several stops on shore to explore the habitats around the islands, where we had a chance to see several nice endemic plants and fossils, as well as some old areas where people used to stop to hunt Whales or even engage in some military activities. During the walk we also saw more species of birds like the only passerine in the area, Snow Bunting, Common Ringed Plover with chicks, the gorgeous male Rock Ptarmigan displaying, Red-throated Loon, and a few Long-tailed Ducks at the Ny-Alesund research station. We also saw mammals like several Reindeer, more Arctic Foxes and two of the most wanted ones, the Walrus, seen first with big group relaxing on a beach and some other ones swimming right by our zodiacs, and, of course, the Polar Bear. The first bear was at an awkward moment when people were going on shore, and our guides called the other ones, alerting us that there was a Polar Bear walking not too far from the beach. We had to abort our mission of going for a walk and by the time we were back to our mother ship, M/V Plancius, the bear was walking near to the spot where we were.
One day later, on the majestic pack ice, we saw 4 other Bears, including two of them eating a dead Sperm Whale for a very long time. Our captain did a great job moving the ship to the perfect spot where we could stop and enjoy the Polar Bear for over two hours without disturbing it a lot. It was very nice to watch the first bear stepping out when a second, and larger, one showed up to enjoy the dead Whale too. Besides the Bears, there were seven Ivory Gulls also enjoying the free meal. We saw the gulls earlier on the tour, but that was an outstanding long view and it was nice to see how good these birds are at blending in on the ice, where we could basically see just their eyes and feet.
Along the way we also saw more interesting birds on both land and sea, like Red-throated Loon, the beautiful King Eider, a brief look at Pink-footed Goose, Dunlin also seen a couple of times. The Thick-billed Murre nesting colony, with over 100,000 birds, was something unbelievable, and all those groups of the minute Dovekie flying near to the water. Near the end of the tour, the Atlantic Puffins coming in and out from the cliffs were also fantastic. For non-bird exciting moments, we saw two nice groups of Belugas, a very cooperative Humpback Whale, a brief Bowhead Whale and three species of Seal, including a very curious Bearded Seal close to our ship.
Being in the Arctic is an unforgettable experience; even if we do not think about the wildlife, the landscapes are fantastic, all the glaciers which are there for thousands of years and we had a chance to hear some loud cracking noises coming from their interior which is cool (and creepy at the same time) and it does remind us that things are constantly changing over time and they need respect.
When we did the Top 3 Birds (or mammals, places, experiences, etc) of the tour, seeing the Pack Ice was one of the most favorite options, because when we look at the world map, we went to 82 degrees North which is very, very far away, but it also shows us the ice is getting smaller and thinner so we need to do more to keep it alive. Thank you to the M/V Plancius crew/staff for doing this in the best possible way for us.
Some of the other critters we saw included:
1) Beluga
2) Common Minke Whale
3) Humpback Whale
4) Arctic Fox
5) Polar Bear
6) Walrus
7) Harbor Seal
8) Bowhead Whale
9) Ringed Seal
10) Harp Seal
11) Bearded Seal
12) Caribou (Reindeer)
It was a memorable tour and I hope to see you guys again soon.
Abraços!!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/426143
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/spi25TRIPLIST.pdf
-- Marcelo Barreiros