Beyond 66.5 Degrees North - Day 8: High Tundra Junction

As the forecast had predicted, we woke to some better weather conditions on day 8.  The wind had eased to a gentle whisper and the cloud above was broken. We had decided that the photography mission for the day was to head to the upland tundra areas with our prime target hopefully being Dotterel.  Given the previous wind conditions we had avoided the upland areas, on the basis that if it was bad at sea level it would be twice as bad at some altitude.

Before I describe the day, I thought I need to mention a little about Dotterel which have remained elusive to me. All bird photographers have a personal 'bogie species', a bird they would love to photograph but despite their efforts, seems to stubbornly refuse to appear in front of the camera. I have tried for Dotterel in the UK,  with the spring passage birds on their northward migration. However, each attempt has ended in failure with the birds departing just before I arrived. To be fair though I have only tried on a couple of occasions so my absence of success is mainly due to a lack of concerted effort on my part. For wildlife photography, as in many of life's pursuit, the more effort you put in the greater the rewards.

We left the hotel and headed west along the fjord befor taking the road northwards along the Tana River Valley, before heading upwards on to the high tundra. Our destination for the day was the road junction at Gedjne which offers a range of upland tundra bird habitat including a series of pools and lakes. Below is a couple of photographs to give you an idea of the landscape. There were still areas of deep accumulation of snow in places and the snow cliff along the small river valley in the photograph below was about 6 metres high.

On arrival at the road junction, we spotted a male Long-tailed Duck in the roadside pool with which to start the day's photography.

On the pool on the other side of the road was a pair of Red-Throated Diver but we would return to them later after we went looking for our main target bird of the day, the Dotterel. We headed directly to an area where we had been told we may find some of the 'elusive' birds and  came off the main road and headed up to a plateau area along a dirt track. As we came up to the summit, there in plain view by the side of the track was a male Dotterel.

After taking a few photographs from the car and scanning round we also found the more boldly coloured and marked female. We parked up and then spent around 40 minutes carefully photographing the birds on foot, aware that this is a sensitive time for the birds and not wishing to cause any disturbance. A selection of these images are below.

A great start to what would be our last full day in Norway. As we were up on the plateau passing bird watchers must have seen us and decided to travel up the track to see what we had found. Soon three cars were heading up the track towards us. When asked if we had seen any Dotterel, we replied that we had seen one flying off as we did not want the birds to be subject to the pressure from this sudden deluge of people.

We came off the plateau and parked up by a lake next to the main road and decided it was time for some food and we raided the diminishing supermarket supplies in the boot. It was pleasant sat by the lake eating cheese and crackers watching the antics of ruff in the reeds on the far bank. Even the sun was doing its best to try and break through the clouds overhead.

Returning to the road junction area it was obvious that these lakes were alive with birds. Suddenly the lack of birds on the coast through the week all started to make sense. The  unusually warm spell a couple of weeks early had caused the snow and lakes to melt up in the high tundra area and the birds had moved up in response to start their breeding earlier. We spotted some Ruff on the shore of a lake with a low ridge to tuck behind to photograph them from. I only took a couple of photographs as I had my eye on some other species and left Adam to them. I moved back up to the small pool where the Long-tailed Duck was and started photographing some Red-necked Phalarope and also had a Wood Sandpiper working along the lake margin in front of me. Occasional the sandpiper would burst into a short display flight only quickly to return to resume its feeding activities in front of me.

My next target was in the small pool on the other side of the road where there was a pair of Red-throated Diver. It was cloudy at first so I waited there for a while for the sun to break through. Always a pleasure to spend time with these birds.

I then crossed the road junction again and across onto the willow scrub along the margin of the bigger lake where I could hear Bluethroat singing and the trill display flight calls of Temmincks Stint. The Bluethroat were typically being awkward, frequently appearing briefly on the top of the vegetation but always slightly too distance. After a bit of perseverance I managed to get close in on the birds on a couple of occasions with them in a decent setting.

The Stints were hyperactive and whizzing around in fluttering display flights and occasionally landing on top of the low scrub.

Whilst trying to photograph the Bluethroat, I noticed a Ruff working it ways along the edge of the lake towards me. As it got closer I realised it had the colouration of the bird that Adam had been talking about for the past few days. The one he named 'The Purple Prince'. I must admit that I had suggested that such a bird didn't exist but there it was now in all its glory in front of the camera.

The  weather was starting to close in and it had been a long drive to get here so we decided to call it a day on the high tundra and head back to Vadso. After the daily dose of Pizza, we headed back to the hotel. Outside the weather and more importantly the light had become really good. The wind had dropped to nothing and golden light bathed the landscape. We picked up the cameras once again and headed out on to the nature reserve next to the hotel on Vadsoya Island. I was aware Adam had yet to photograph any Red-necked Phalarope and so we headed directly to the pond.

I left Adam with these hyperactive waders and decided to go for a wander to see if there were any other waders along the shoreline. Whether there were any I will never know as I was stopped in my tracks my Arctic Terns. It looks like the absent birds had finally returned and were prospecting an area to set up their nesting colony.

The light was now beautiful and with some gathering dark clouds in the distance made a perfect setting for photographing some of these elegant long-distance travels in flight. Up to this point in the trip opportunities for any flight photography had been virtually non-existent due to conditions. As the birds were inspecting the area for next locations they were frequently hovering over a spot which allowed for some more interesting poses with their wings and tails stretched wide.

One notable difference with the warmer stiller conditions was that it suddenly brought the mosquitoes out. To give you an impression here is Adam walking amongst them.

Circling back towards Adam, I came across one of the resident Mountain Hares and took the opportunity to get a few photographs in some warm soft back-lighting before bring the days events to an end. It had been a long but rewarding day.

Back in the hotel we started packing as we would be checking out in the morning to start the long journey home. By the time I had finished it was around midnight and it was still light and sunny outside. For those of you who haven't seen what the midnight sun is like I took a quick photograph outside the hotel at 12:15am.  As you can see it really does create beautiful light.

There will be one more post to come on this trip which will just tie up the journey home which included a brief stop-off back at Gosbeak Motel.

Immersed in Iceland: Day 5 - Myvatn Circuits

We had another early start on our second day in the area around Lake Myvatn. The weather forecast the night before looked promising by drawing back the bedroom curtains revealed bright but overcast skies overhead. Hopefully it would brighten later as I was keen to try and get some Harlequins in better light on the River Laxa. We intended to follow a similar routine to the day before with a circuit of the lake before breakfast followed by looking round to see what we could find and of course a return visit at some point to the rapids of the River Laxa.

Once more we had not gone too far in the 'campervan' before we came across our first bird, stood in the road, a Ptarmigan. It moved to the verge and crouched low in amongst the multi-coloured short vegetation. These birds must feel fairly vulnerable when they are are still in their winter whites with no snow to conceal them from the watchful eyes of Gyr Falcon.

We traveled on our clockwise circuit seeing several more Ptarmigan but too distant for photographs, the birds standing out very obviously against the dark volcanic rocks. Around the north-west side of the lake we came across another bird close to the road. This one was perched relatively high up and to avoid photographing against a flat white sky we both ended up standing on the door sills to give some elevation and get the angle for a better coloured background of a volcanic mound behind.

Our next encounter was a Snipe on a post which eventually left us with a shrill call before speeding off in whirring display flight.

It was turning into a bit of a Ptarmigan morning as we encountered another bird perched up on some lichen clad lava and another on a grass verge, together with a bonus Whimbrel in the road. That was a total of around 8 Ptarmigan we had seen in one lap of the lake before heading back to the hotel for breakfast.

While I was in Iceland and as soon as I got back, I had a few people contact me saying they were visiting within the next week or so and asking for pointers as to where to find birds. As you can see it would pointless giving any suggestions in the Myvatn area as it just seems to change from one day to the next.

After a good breakfast including Steve topping up his cod liver oil levels, we headed back out but didn't get far. About 20m to be precise as there was a Snipe feeding along the top of a grass embankment on the edge of the hotel car park. Its raised position giving the appearance of photographing the bird at ground level. The overhead cloud was starting to break up.

Off down the road once more, for another Myvatn circuit. Crossing a small swift flowing river we spotted a couple of Harlequin Ducks lurking in the quieter flowing margins and so stopped for a short while to try and get some photographs.

Back on the road with our noisy studded snow tyres, we decided to head right round the other side of the lake and back to the area around the Bird Museum, picking up a dozing Snipe en route.

Driving up the Museum track we found a very vocal Black-tailed Godwit calling from a grass mound with a Whimbrel stalking around about 2 metres away. We parked up and once again headed off in separate directions.

It was all to much so I decided to have a lay down round the back of the Museum building, although with good reason as there were a pair of Slavonian Grebes drifting slowly on the still water. I managed to position myself so that the reflection of a volcano in the background created some nice dark water to show off the colours of the birds against.

I wandered back round and found Steve down the bottom of an embankment having some fun with a group of hyperactive Red-necked Phalaropes. This was turning into a busy morning! A few more Phalarope photos were consigned to the memory card.

Behind me the noisy Godwit was still strutting its stuff on the grass mound, so I left Steve with the tiny waders and spent some time creeping up on what turned out to be a very accommodating bird. This allowed me to get a range of photos with different background just be slightly shifting my position up and down the mound.

Not bad for morning's work as it was close to midday now. The warm still air had encouraged a small explosion of non-biting midges from the lake. A hint of what could happen if the conditions had not been so cold. I can imagine 'Midge Lake' thoroughly deserves its name at certain times of year. 

I think this is one of the days when we forgot to have lunch as we were so absorbed in the photography. This had a few times over the trip and we would suddenly realise we were starving around 5pm.  Once again we hit the Myvatn circuit. We stopped off by a lake at a small nature reserve area on the east bank. As we made our way down to the lake, clouds of flies erupted from the grass. The dense swarms producing an audible humming in the air. We didn't stop there long and carried on to the River Laxa bridge. It was clouding up again and I was starting to wonder if I would actually ever get some Harlequin Duck in some sunlight. We stopped a while and took some photos before moving on once more with a view to returning when the distant blue sky had made its way over.

 

We headed back towards the Hotel and decided to try a large slightly raised isolated lake immediately to the west known as Stakholstjorn. This place had a very strange landscape of mini volcanic pseudocraters. An Arctic Tern on a post posed for us at the start of the footpath. These terns were very common in Iceland but strangely this is one of the very few photographs I took of them during the whole trip. 

We went our separate ways once more with Steve heading off to a small pool at the very far end and I decided to hang back for a Long-tailed Duck.

 

Moving on around the lake, I saw two large black birds at distance and then heard that eerie haunting wail of the Great Northern Diver which echoed around the weird landscape. Such a beautiful evocative sound. One of the birds only appeared close momentarily before diving and resurfacing a long way away. 

Walking past numerous Phalarope, a pair of whistling Wigeon caught my eye and ear next as I continued my walk around this large lake. 

While nearby several Whooper Swans were chasing each other about. The heads and bodies dis-coloured orange by the iron rich waters.

The bird above had a Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust ring and it is ironic to think that this swan may appear back in England in the winter at Martin Mere which is fairly close to my home. Meanwhile at the other end of the lake Steve was getting some stunning images of Slavonian Grebe on the small pool. I decided to spend some time with a pair of these birds on the main lake that were hunting sticklebacks in the margins. 

As you can see by this point the sun had finally reappeared, it was time to return to the River Laxa where we would finish our day by its rushing waters in some wonderful evening sunlight. Yes, finally some Harlequin Ducks in the sun.

It felt like we had squeezed a day and half into one but a very memorable one with a great variety of beautiful birds in such a stunning location. Myvatn had revealed its avian treasures. 

That night we went for Pizza and the forecast was not looking good for another day at Myvatn so we would be departing in the morning and heading northwards to try and keep with some better weather.