Cruise day – bird watching
This article is part of the series “2023-06: Arctic Ocean cruise KPH”.
After we left yesterday’s ice station we have been cruising. When I woke up today morning I looked out of the window. Open sea, no ice in sight. Flocks of sea birds. And then a puffin flew past the porthole. Give me a moment – a puffin!? I must have been dreaming. Anyhow I got dressed and went to the helicopter deck to take bird photos.
Just a note: I do not know all these sea birds, but on a scientific cruise there are always people you can ask.
Large flocks of little black-white bird swooshed round the ship. They flew so fast, that the photos mostly only showed blurred shadows. It was flocks of …
Alle alle · Little auk · Alkekonge · Krabbentaucher
I moved to deck 3 to take pictures from a lower angle and played with the focus configuration of my Nikon. That helped a bit. I managed to take some photos from sea birds as …
Uria lomvia · Polarlomvi · Brünnich’s guillemot · Dickschnabellumme
… with the typical white strap behind the beak
Or the …
Fulmarus glacialis · Havhest · Northern fulmar · Eissturmvogel
… that loves to glide just above the sea surface.
Or the …
Cepphus grylle · Teist · Black guillemot · Gryllteiste
… with its red legs.
More or more ice floes covered the sea, we were heading to the ice edge to find a good place for a second ice station.
Still there were a lot of little auks around …
… but more and more the
Rissa tridactyla · Krykkje · Black-legged kittiwake · Dreizehenmöwe
… took over.
After some time at least a hundred circled the Kronprins Haakon hunting for small fish.
There is one photo however that makes me happy. The quality is bad, but I managed to take a photo of a …
Fratercula arctica · Lunde / Lundefugl · Atlantic puffin · Papageientaucher
So, I wasn’t dreaming this morning.
I always wanted to sea these birds, that I have loved since childhood. And today I saw two of them flying around.