Sunday 24
March. We had breakfast then walked the shot distance up to the church,
mostly on the road as the pavements were quite slippery. We checked out and
drove back to Vadoya where there were now 31 Steller’s Eiders in the harbour.
We walked out to the north end of the island seeing eight Arctic Hares and a
male King Eider in a distant eider
flock. We slowly drove east towards Vardo stopping at Ekkeroy and then Kiberg
on the way. Ekkeroy was quite but Kiberg was better with a fly-over juvenile White-tailed Eagle and 18 Steller’s Eiders in the harbour. We
continued to Vardo, an island reached by a 3km tunnel. There we checked into
the Vardo Hotel and were given one of the rooms overlooking the harbour. A
flock of ten Steller’s Eiders were a
welcome distraction as we settled in as were a few Purple Sandpipers on the
exposed rocks below. We drove to the NE corner of the island looking across to
Hornoya, 1.2km away. Even this early in the season the cliffs were covered with
thousands of auks. They would be mostly Guillemots, although they were too far
away to identify. Hundreds of auks were on the sea between Vardo and Hornoya including
an estimated 500 Puffins mid channel. I was surprised to see them given the
slopes of Hornoya where they’d most likely have their burrows were still
covered in snow but perhaps that was why they were on the water. Also Dave
Cooper had yet to see any on Shetland. Most other auks stuck to the far side of
the channel but I did manage to identify a couple of closer Razorbills and saw
a handful of birds I thought might be Brunnich’s Guillemots. Megan walked back
to the hotel to allow me to stay out until dark, seeing another White-tailed Eagle causing some
pandemonium over Hornoya. Sadly not the Gyrfalcon seen to take a Puffin by
those on a trip there the previous day. I felt the chance of a repeat showing
was rather remote, plus it was quite expensive to visit and rather time
consuming unless one was really keen on guillemots so was content to try my
luck from Vardo but it was not to be. After a mainly sunny day a blanket of
clouds rolled in. With the chance of seeing the aurora again at only 12% we didn’t
venture out.
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| Steller's Eider in Vadso Harbour |
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| Vadso from Vadsoya |
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| Arctic Hare on Vadsoya |
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| Megan on Vadsoya |
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| Vadso Church |
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| with resident Raven |
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| White-tailed Eagle on the way to Kiberg |
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| Kiberg Harbour |
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| Kiberg had a flock of (mainly) Steller's Eiders too |
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| first view of Vardo |
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| the view from our window at the Vardo Hotel |
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| it was as impressive as we remembered it |
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| with a male Steller's Eider making it more so |
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| looking across to Hornoya |
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| guillemots on Hornoya |
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| Hertigruten Ferry Kong Harald passing Hornoya on the way into Vadso Harbour |
Monday 25
March. All day on Vardo. After breakfast we walked to the Stielneset
Memorial being caught in a blizzard as we approached. We sheltered in the
‘mirror’ building and it soon blew over. The ‘cocoon’ memorial was quite moving
listing the ‘crimes’ of the 91 people (mostly female) burned at the stake for
witch craft in the 1600s. We walked to the SW tip of Vardo
where a large distant raft of duck, presumably Common and King Eider, were too
far away to identify, not helped by bright sunlight. Returning to the hotel we
saw a couple of juvenile Glaucous Gulls. We drove a km to the NW and walked out
towards the NW tip of the island as far as an impressive sculpture that we’d
not remembered from last time. It was constructed in Summer 2016 so might well
not have been started then. We saw few birds and opted to walk back on a path heading
to the other side of the peninsular. It soon became hard going with patches of
soft snow and was equally birdless. We drove back across town to a supermarket then
had lunch in our room seeing an adult Glaucous Gull, two Brunnich’s Guillemots
and nine Steller’s Eiders from the window. After lunch I drove back to the NE
tip where I spent an hour scanning across to Hornoya. Birds were similar to
last evening but with many fewer Puffins
on the sea and no White-tailed Eagle although I did see another Glaucous Gull. I drove back to the
Stielneset Memorial and walked to the SW tip where I finished the day watching
the distant Eider flock for 90 minutes until the light started to go. The flock
was still very distant but at least the light was better than it had been in
the morning. Prolonged observation made the identification of flying males
possible once I’d got my eye in although I was regretting having brought a
travel scope to save weight. I estimated the flock to number about 1800 birds
and based on the males identified estimated the proportion to be three or four King Eider to every Common Eider. Very impressive, or it
would have been had they been even half the distance. There were several
hundred Long-tailed Duck in the area
too. I took a number of photographs but they were awful with hardly any birds
identifiable at all. I’d become quite cold despite being in one of the
shelters. I hurried back to the car and put on the heated seat and steering
wheel to help me warm up although as it was only three minute drive back to the
hotel they didn’t really have a chance to prove themselves. While I’d been away
Megan had visited the Fort and walked around town. It had been an enjoyable
‘easy’ day although views of duck were disappointing. Another heavily overcast
night with a low chances of seeing the aurora kept us in again.
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| Stielneset Memorial in a blizzard |
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| me trying a selfie in the 'mirror' building |
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| Megan sheltering in the 'mirror' building |
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| view south from the Stieleneset Memorial |
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| Stieleneset Memorial and 'mirror' building after the blizard had past |
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| Megan in the Stieleneset Memorial, a light and plaque for every 'witch' burned alive |
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| reflection of Vardo Fort |
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| Glaucous (first and second-winter) and Herring Gulls on the coast near the Stieleneset Memorial |
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| the second-winter Glaucous Gull |
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| adult Glaucous Gull in Vardo Harbour |
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| Hooded Crow on Vardo |
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| Vardo sculpture |
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| Viking Longship x Whale hybrid carcus? |
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| Megan on Vardo |
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| Hornoya from a slightly different angle |
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| Vardo Harbour, radar and church |
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| more Steller's Eiders from our window |
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| Brunnich's Guillemots in Vardo Harbour |
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| King and Common Eider off the southern tip of Vardo |
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| King Eider off Vardo, sadly this was as close as any came |
Tuesday 26
March. I sneaked out of the hotel at 05:25 and returned to the SW tip of
the island and the distant Eider flock but if anything they were even further out
and the light was no better. This time, based on a very much smaller sample of
identifiable birds, there might have been marginally more Common Eider than King Eider
while Long-tailed Duck outnumbered
both (but were easier to identify). There were hundreds of Guillemots including a handful I was confident were Brunnich’s a varying distances offshore
and two Glaucous Gulls flew by.
After an hour the light was noticeably worsening as the sun moved round so I
headed back to the car and drove to the opposite end of Vardo for a final scan
of Hornoya. I saw three Glaucous Gulls
but very many fewer Puffns than
previously and the light was not so good. I was back at the Vardo Hotel just
before 08:00 for breakfast and after we packed (six Steller’s Eiders from the window) and left. We’d had a very
enjoyable couple of days at Vardo, firming up its position as one of my
favourite places in Europe. We were returning around Varangerfjord to Kirkenes
but had plenty of time for the journey and stopped first at Vadsoya walking out to the airship
pylon hoping the small Eider flock might be closer in. It was in a similar
position but did not have a/the King Eider with it. Back in the harbour were 12
Steller’s Eiders. We continued to
Nesseby where we drove down to the church but I was thinking ahead rather than
paying enough attention to the snowy road down to it and the car slipped to the
side of the road and into a hidden rut where it became stuck. The rut was a tyres width, full of soft
snow and deep enough to ground the car. We tried digging it out with picnic
plates as we didn’t have a shovel but to no avail. Fortunately a very helpful
passing local stopped to help and after a look around decided to go and find a
shovel. In the short time he was away I found a towing eye in the car’s tool
kit and when he returned he eventually fitted it to the front bumper – the
thread being the opposite direction to that I was expecting. He had a tow –rope
and on the third of forth attempt pulled us out. No damage done and we
continued to the church which was very quiet. We continued around Varanger
fjord and back to Kirkenes with a couple of brief stops on the way. We stopped
in the Rema 1000 supermarket in Kirkenes for a few bits of shopping and back at
Sollia where we were given the same room. I walked up the snowmobile track to a
ridge for the last hour of daylight seeing nothing but met a couple from New
Zealand who had seen the aurora the previous evening which unlike in Vardo had
been clear. After we’d eaten Megan and I walked a bit further along the
snowmobile track but a blanket of heavy cloud prevented us from seeing the sky.
Surprisingly we didn’t need a torch as there was an eerie light appearing
trapped between the snow and the cloud.
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| the eider flock off the southern tip of Vardo |
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| Long-tailed Duck too |
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| Hornoya |
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| Vardo Harbour in a blizzard, fortunately it didn't last |
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| clear skies before we reached Vadso |
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| Purple Sandpiper on Vadsoya |
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| Vadsoya |
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| Arctic Hare on Vadsoya |
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| as photogenic as ever |
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| International Rescue at Nesseby |
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| Reindeer |
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| Varangerfjord from the south |
Wednesday 27 March.
I left the hostel at 06:10 to walk the snowmobile track and just made it to the
‘aurora camp’ before having to turn back for breakfast. It was only about 15
minutes further than we’d walked the previous evening and views to the
northern horizon did not appear to be appreciably better. I saw two Pine Grosbeaks and several Willow Tits which made the walk
worthwhile. After breakfast we drove into Kirkenes and visited a cashpoint in
town and then the museum. There were several historical displays including a
WW2 Russian Fighter-bomber that had been salvaged from the lake it had crashed
into, the pilot surviving but his crewman misunderstanding the order not to
bail out when not high enough for their parachute to open. One display of
several old bikes caught my eye. Surprisingly it was the most topical as they had recently
been used by refugees from Syria using Arctic Norway as a gateway to Europe. Russia doesn’t allow pedestrians to cross the border here and Norway
prosecutes drivers bringing refugees in but hose on bikes could cross. Apparently it was easy to fly to Murmansk from southern Russia and travel to Nickel (a smelting town near the border, two of its chimneys were visible from above Sollia). Here a clapped out bike
could be bought for an extortionate £200 with which to cross the border and then dump. Norwegian authorities destroying them as not being roadworthy. It sounded a lot safer
than crossing the Mediterranean in an inflatable raft but still rather sad that
much of the world was such an unsafe place to live. We returned to Sollia for
lunch, again looking out for the Hawk Owl seen on our first morning, and driving
along the minor road where it had flown to but again drew a blank. Megan was
keen to visit Kirkenes Snow Hotel and after lunch we drove out to it, almost into the
wilds on the other side of Kirkenes. A tour would have
been prohibitively expensive, more so if one had a meal which we didn’t fancy (Reindeer, King Crab ...).
We took advantage of the daily entrance fee of 300 NOK each (about £30!) which
also gave us a fee warm ‘berry’ drink. The Snow Hotel was impressive although
why anyone would want to stay in one of its twenty or so ice caves with hard bed, no toilet and rudimentary lighting is beyond me, particularly if it was one of the rooms with
a troll carved into the walls. The stuff of nightmares, although one room did
have a Hawk Owl centre stage which was much more to my liking. With it fresh in my mind we again detoured on the
way back to Sollia with no success. We continued past Sollia, for all of 500m deciding
we ought to see what the Russian Border looked like. It was pretty much like
any other with fences and warning signs and a quick circuit of the car park was
more than enough for us. We then thought it worth driving a short distance along road to Grense Jakobselev to see if there were any decent aurora viewpoints. The road is closed in winter but when opens runs for 50 km, the last section alongside a stream which marks the Russian
border. We were only 100m down the road when I came to an abrupt stop. The, or
another, Hawk Owl was sat in the top
of a fir tree opposite. Fortunately there were few vehicles on the narrow road and
we watched it for ten minutes without issue. It was sleeting for a while
and was quite dull which made viewing and photography difficult. I’d also left
my telescope at Sollia. The owl looked pretty settled and I took a chance and drove
on to find somewhere to turn around and take Megan back to Sollia. There I collected
my telescope and returned to the owl. It hadn’t moved and I spent half an hour
watching it through my telescope. It wasn’t easy to digiscope from within the
car and I was worried if I got out it might fly. Photos were a shade
disappointing, although I don’t do too well digiscoping these days, but it was a
great bird to finish the trip with. It seems likely to have been the same
individual as it was only 1.5-2km from our first sighting a week before. The
wind picked up and its tree started to sway. The skies darkened and the sleet
returned so I reluctantly dragged myself away. We looked to be finishing on
another cloudy night and had pretty much given up on seeing the aurora and
watched an hour of TV. I then looked out and saw it was completely clear. My
aurora app showed a25% chance of seeing something, the highest it had been all
week, so we went out and walked up the snowmobile track towards the ridge for
ten minutes. Surprisingly it was much darker than the previous night and I was
glad of my torch. We caught up with a Thai girl from Sweden who told us she’d
seen the aurora five minutes earlier and showed as a photo of a couple of vertical
green streaks. Why hadn’t we come out sooner? She saw it again a minute or two
later but we missed it, then Megan saw something and we realised it was not as
obvious as we were expecting (although we had been told this by others). The
Thai girl explained it was like a pale vertical wispy cloud and pointing us in
the right direction we saw what she was looking at. I took a photo and as the
image flashed up on the screen saw it was green, at least to the camera. Having
our eye in we saw several aurora effects over a ten minute period, some of
which photographed quite well although I was wishing I’d brought my tripod to
try some long exposures. Attempts with my smart phone captured nothing. Clouds
started to roll in and the aurora, or what we saw of it, faded. Megan went back
but I stayed out and walked up to the ridge and waited around a bit. The clouds
cleared again but I saw no more aurora activity and headed back. It had been an
excellent end to a very enjoyable trip.
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| Male Arctic Redpoll at Sollia |
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| thanks to Dave Cooper for allaying my concern about the one dak undertail covert feather, otherwise the bird was all one could wish for of a Coues's |
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| following the snowmobile track above Sollia |
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| Sollia Aurora Camp |
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| Hooded Crows at Kirkenes Snow Hotel |
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| giving me the evil eye |
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| Megan in the Snow Hotel reception |
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| one of the family rooms |
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| Megan liked the Moomintroll room |
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| I preferred the owl room, but didn't realise it would be an omen ... |
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| Hawk Owl near Sollia |
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| it seemed likely it was the individual seen less than 2km away six days previously |
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| a brilliant bird to start and finish the trip with |
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| aurora effects above Sollia, none appeared green to the naked eye and some (like this one) would have been overlooked if we hadn't been helped to get our eye in by a Thai girl from Sweden. |
Thursday 28
March. I went out for an hour before breakfast, seeing a Pine Grosbeak fly over and hearing
another and two Willow Tits. The
journey home went smoothly – filled car with petrol and dropped it off, checked
in for our flight to Oslo, collected bags and checked in for our later flight
to Gatwick, cleared the airport in time to catch an earlier train home and back
indoors at 20:40 …
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| a bird feeder above Sollia, a Willow Tit had been on it until I raised my camera |
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| the Snowmobile track above Sollia |
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| chimneys in Nickel. We were told they spew out more pollutants than the whole of Norway combined |
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| our plane arriving at Kirkenes |
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| departure |
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| leaving Kirkenes |
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| Southern Norway |
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| still snowy near Oslo |
