I get no thrill from watching birds. But I find photographing birds exhilarating, especially when I can capture their antics. It’s high-speed, quick reaction photography. Over the past six weeks, we have traveled to continental Norway, Svalbard, Greenland and Iceland, providing us countless opportunities to see and photograph birds we have never seen (or heard of). Here is a sampling of what we captured. 

Black-legged Kittiwake.  Supposedly their call sounds like their name, making then the onomatopoeia or birds. I spent hours listening to them and never heard this. They were just noisy.

Kittiwakes followed our ship closely, sometimes trying to nest on the top floor.  I found an angle to watch their antics. It seems like a male and female are having a discussion, of what I am not sure.

Barnacle Goose. On a day in port we walked around Longyearbyen, the largest “city” in Svalbard, home of about 2,500 residents. Another type of resident numbering many more that 2,500 is the Barnacle Goose. We hunted and tracked them along the outskirts of town originally thinking they were common eider ducks. Once they honked, we knew we were very wrong.

I did not purposely spook this goose. Somehow it felt like flying.

It was post-mating season. This goose was raising a barnacle goose football team. They were practicing a new formation when we got there.

Northern Fulmar.  This bird is common across the seas of the arctic. I have no interesting story about the fulmars. I just like this photo.

I was able to photograph the fulmars from our veranda on our ship. The fulmar looks like it has a reflection, but it is a second bird.

Northern Gannet. The northern gannet is the largest bird species in the north Atlantic. It did not seem so to us as we saw them only once on our 40-day trip, while cruising around Heimaey Island, Iceland. Males and females look very similar, so your guess is as good as mine for what I photographed.

I love it when an animal looks right at me – makes for a more compelling photo. I took hundreds of shots to get this one.

Arctic Tern. These birds travel more than us! They will fly to/from the arctic to/from Antarctica in a single year, covering about 25,000 miles. They are going to be million milers in no time – free upgrades for them.  We saw thousands of terns this trip both in Svalbard and Iceland. If you walk too close to their nesting area, they will attack you by dive-bombing your head.  

I was lucky I could still run, avoiding a skirmish. This guy was not so lucky. [photo by Kathryn]

Everywhere we would turn, there was a tern. This was at a public beach – notice the fish in its mouth – dinner time!

This was interesting. The tern would sit on a rock by a walkway. I would walk by and it would take off. A minute later it would return to the same rock. This allowed me to practice tern landings.

Common Redshank. Why is this bird called the common redshank? Just look at its shanks, vibrant orange red. I had never seen one of these before. When I saw one near a beach on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in Iceland, I decided I needed its photo.

I traipsed through and around grassy fields until one took off just in front of me.

Arctic Loon. Loons are also called divers. If you bump into one, it may go by the name of Arctic Diver. We were walking by a pond on our way to a great set of basalt columns at Kalfshamarsviti in the very north of Iceland when I spotted a loon and its loonlet. Forget the columns, we must photograph these loons, now added to our collection.

A mother & child relationship is always great to photograph.

Whooper Swan.  We have seen whooper swans before in northern Japan during the winter. That day there were near gale force winds so photographing them was out of the question. In Iceland there are more whooper swans that I can count.

This one said “hi” to me. Or, it was distracting me from its cygnets (that’s a baby swan).

We photographed many other species of birds but none as interesting or cute as a puffin. Stay tuned for a future blog on our day with the puffins, thousands of them.