A brief sojourn to the Arctic
In may 2023 an opportunity suddenly arose, for a work trip to Svalbard in the Norwegian high Arctic. This involved travelling to Longyearbyen, the northernmost town in the World. The town abounded with Arctic wildlife, including geese (barnacle, brant and pink-footed), snow buntings and a peculiar, short-legged subspecies of reindeer. Waterbirds included red-necked phalarope, purple sandpiper, eider ducks, Brünnich's guillemot, glaucus gull, great skua and arctic skua. A 5 hour 'walrus safari' across the Isfjord to Borebukta yielded black guillemot, puffin, fulmar and little auk - as well as humpback whale, arctic fox, several walruses and a very distant polar bear, shrouded in snow and rain.
