Spitsbergen 17-24 June 2019

What an amazing place ! A week-long trip on the Plancius, from Longyearbyen up the west coast of the archipelago. The pack ice is further south than usual this year, so we were unable to head round the north side of Svalbard at all, but this had the advantage of increasing our chances of seeing Polar Bears on the pack ice. The landscape is truly amazing, extremely mountainous with some snow cover and glaciation, which combined with the shifting mists and sea ice (in the north) is very impressive indeed. The ship has zodiac boats which can be lowered for access to shore-based landings, and also for cruises along the shoreline and fjord edge. A stunning landscape with generally very confiding wildlife - large numbers of auks - Brunnich's Guillemots and Little Auks - flying around low over the water, Fulmars including the arctic variant Blue Fulmars cruising around, but surprisingly no Ivory Gulls (I missed the only one of the trip). We did extremely well with Polar Bear sightings - no less than 7 being seen, including 2 very close individuals that afforded wonderful opportunities - the first found sleeping on the pack ice before walking towards the ship and giving us amazing views - and the second watched at close range from a zodiac as it snoozed on a blue iceberg. Amazing. We also had excellent views of Walrus, a family of Arctic Foxes, and Seals, as well as Whales - 2 pods of Belugas, 2 Minke Whales, a Humpback, and the biggest of them all - the Blue Whale. All these seen well at fairly close range. The diversity of bird species is very limited at high latitudes, but superb views of a pair of confiding Red-throated Divers, Long-tailed Ducks, a drake King Eider with the numerous Common Eiders, and both Arctic and the scarcer Long-tailed Skuas. The only passerine present is the confiding Snow Bunting. Ghostly-looking Glaucous Gulls and Kittiwakes were numerous. Shorebirds included the very common Purple Sandpiper, as well as Turnstone and Ringed Plover. A fantastic few days, with 24-h daylight thrown in up at 78 degrees north...... the sun doesn't set between April and August! Strange to have it beaming down at 2am.