Bjørnøya … Birds-a-Million

Tuesday, 5 July (Part II)

The most exciting part of our visit to Bjørnøya — an island named for a bear, but that has no bears — was the zodiac cruise we took to explore the base of the steep cliffs that host nesting birds.  And I mean lots, and lots, and lots of nesting birds.  (I wrote about everything about our day except our zodiac outing here.)

Bjørnøya from a distance; once we get closer and drop anchor, we’ll be exploring the cliffs
on the left side of this photograph.

Our group was called down to the gangway on Deck 3 shortly before 10:30a.  Dressed in the recommended layers, we waddled down to join the disembarkation queue.  Oddly, we had to show our ship’s card and have it swiped by the security guard.  Not sure where they thought we’d be disappearing to since the outing did not include a landing.

(For those interested, the layers of clothing included: long johns (thermal underwear); warm clothing (fleece is good); waterproof/windproof pants; waterproof/windproof Silversea parka; and the zodiac life vest.  The backpacks provided by Silversea to keep our hands free of any personal items, such as cameras, went on last and was optional — we used our own dry bags.  A hat; gloves — we used thin liners most of the time for ease of camera operations; and gumboots were also an essential part of our attire.)

Having noted earlier that the first couple of zodiacs to go out were larger and more crowded, we hung back a bit and let the debarkation rush pass us.  This strategy worked out quite nicely today (we had only 6 people on our boat) and we’ll likely employ it on future outings as well; especially those that don’t involve landings ashore.

Comfortably uncrowded in our zodiac, Kara takes us for a cruise along the cliffs.

The island’s geology is varied — partly basement rocks from the Silurian Period or older; partly sedimentary cover from the Devonian Period or younger.  Suffice to say, young and old are relative terms here since we’re talking about rocks that were formed hundreds of millions of years ago.  Sediments in the northern portion of the island include some of the oldest coal seams on earth.  In fact, there was an attempt to mine the coal, but it turned out to be a less than economical venture.

The narrow ledges and crevices of the steep cliffs are inhabited with birds-a-million.

Following the base of the sandstone cliffs provided amazing views of some of the largest seabird colonies of the North Atlantic.  Those that were high up on the cliffs were little more than tiny black and white dots.  Often, we had to strain to see them as they blended so well into the guano-painted cliffs.  This experience brought home to us Robin’s admonition not to venture anywhere without our binoculars.  (By the way, Silversea does provide two pairs of binos in the cabin, but we used our own auto-focus binos instead.)

Black-Legged Kittiwakes and Common Guillemots (Murres) share a ledge.

The Black-Legged Kittiwake is a medium sized gull that is named for its high, nasal call, which sounds something like “kitti-weeeik.”  Nesting in high cliffs, these birds winter at sea.  We saw a lot of Kittiwakes in Alaska last year, so quite honestly, we focused our attention more on the Guillemots since we had not seen them in the wild until this trip.

Common Guillemots (Murres) of the bridled variety (in reference to the white-line around
and extending from their eyes).

Guillemots (Murres) belong to the Auk family; a species I’ve heard referred to as the “Penguins of the Arctic.” They are not of the penguin family of course, but as a friend commented, they are the ecological counterpart of the flightless birds of the southern latitudes. We saw the Common (bridled and unbridled) as well as the Brünnich’s today.

The former is the larger of the two.  Compared to the Brünnich’s Guillemot, the Common Guillemot has a thinner bill, which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Thin-Billed Murre.  It also doesn’t have the distinguishing white stripe on the bill that the Brünnich’s has.  Nesting in high cliffs, they are tightly packed together on ledges (and I mean bodily-contact-close).  I use the word nesting figuratively since they don’t really build nests.  They lay a single egg and incubate it on bare rock.  An interesting factoid about the egg — it is pointed on one end instead of round in shape.  Thus, if disturbed, the egg rolls around its own axis instead of rolling off the edge of the cliff.

The bridling is a polymorphism that becomes more common the further north the common guillemot breeds.  It may be a character displacement of the white bill-stripe seen in the Brünnich’s Guillemot.

Admittedly, the zodiac was not the most stable platform for bird photography.  Not with the choppy water bobbing it up and down; not with the strong currents moving it along even when the engine was idling; and certainly not with us craning our necks to look up from the base to the high reaches of the steep cliffs.  Still we made a credible effort at photographing the birdlife and came away with some nice images I think.

Can you spot the Brünnich's Guillemots in this photograph?

Of course, we saw other birds as well — some more easily photographed than others.  While most of the birds were on ledges on the cliffs, some were on the water, skittering away as the zodiac approached; some were on rocks sticking out of the water; some were on the narrowest of ledges in the dark caves.

Gull chicks — glaucous I believe.

Curious Herring Gull? …

… or perhaps, looking for an opportunity to steal a kill from this gull.

This photo of Common Guillemots (unbridled) is one of my favorites from today.

With the sea constantly crashing against and eroding the sandstone cliffs, several caves have formed at the base.  Over time, some of these have become tunnels.  Kara took us through several of them.  The dark interior was not conducive to photography, but there was enough light to see that the walls inside were filled with birdlife too.

At the southern tip of the island was an arch reminiscent of El Arco at Land’s End in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Would love to have gone ashore at the narrow, black-sand beach here, but it’s not allowed so as not to disturb the nesting birds.  Since 2002, the entire island, except for a small portion around the meteorological station located in the north, is a nature reserve.  (Expanded in 2008 to include 12 nautical miles [22 km] of coastal waters.)

Like El Arco, but in an Arctic setting rather than a tropical one.

Of course, the primary purpose of our zodiac cruise was to see the birds.  But there was a surprise sight that was interesting as well — a shipwreck!  Not the ship of a yesteryear explorer, mind you.  A vessel — specifically a Russian freezer ship — from modern times.  The Petrozavodsk ran aground near the southern tip of the island on 11 May 2009.

Nestled into the cliff, the Petrozavodsk  is a broken down rust bucket.

Vessels longer than 40 feet (12 m) are not allowed to enter the protected waters within a nautical mile of the coastline.  This ship obviously exceeded that criteria, so only an accident or gross negligence could have put the ship inside the limits.  It turns out that it was the latter — when tested soon after the accident, both the Captain and the First Officer had alcohol in their blood; and the First Mate, who was on watch, was thought to be sleeping when the ship ran aground!  As a friend of mine would say, “I J I O T S.”

Look at how neatly the ship fit into the cove when it first ran aground; now it’s broken into two pieces by the pounding surf and storms.
[compiled from pictures on the website shown above; click photo to go to the website]

On that note, our outing came to an end.  A shame really as the sun had burned off the fog and there were patchy blue skies and sunshine to add to the natural beauty around us.

We say goodbye to Mother Nature’s majesty …

… and follow in the path of another zodiac  ....

... to arrive all too soon back at our home base.

Onward we go further north in search of more adventure.