Today’s photos of Arctic birds come from ecologist Susan Harrison of UC Davis. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:
Arctic Europe
Here are a few birds of the tundra and rocky shores of the high European Arctic, mostly on Norway’s scenic Varanger Peninsula at the very northern end of Europe. An earlier post from this May 2024 trip focused on the seabirds of the island of Hornoya and nearby fishing town of Vardo. In a subsequent post I’ll go a little farther south and feature the forest birds of northern Finland.
Willow Ptarmigan (a.k.a. Willow Grouse, Red Grouse; Lagopus lagopus):
Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) – can you spot both of this pair?
Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis):
Parasitic Jaeger (a.k.a. Arctic Skua; Stercorarius parasiticus), given its unpleasant name for its food-stealing habit:
Short-eared Owl (Asio flammeus) – we saw five of these in one morning, suggesting it’s a good vole year:
White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), quite common in this area, and so large they have been called “flying barn doors:”
White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus), hunting along a river swollen by snowmelt:
Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica) – this is the only picture I could manage of this enchanting high-Arctic bird, found in both the Old and New Worlds:
Dotterel (Eudromias morinellus) – a pink plover!!
Eurasian Golden-Plover (Pluvialis apricaria) – a dazzling sequined plover!!
Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis); these two were likely exhausted after a long migratory flight:
Dunlin (Calidris alpina); this flock was completely exhausted and immobile on a rocky beach:
Dunlin closeup:
Common Eider flock (Somateria mollissima), the source of that lovely down:
Common Eider closeup:
Lovely photos! And I couldn’t see the pictures of the Eider without thinking of the Pink Floyd song, A Pillow of Winds: A cloud of eiderdown draws around me
Softening the sound…
I’m in love with these photos!
If you didn’t mention the Rock Ptarmigan as a pair, I would not have seen the second one. It makes a good rock.
The Bluethroat is my favorite. What a gorgeous bird.
Thank you!
It looks like you had a fabulous trip to Norway and the European Arctic. Thanks so much for sharing photos of some special birds from this exotic realm. Both the land/sea and its avian inhabitants are so evocative! Now I’ll also be looking forward to your photos of forest birds from northern Finland.
Wonderful! Love the epaulets on the long-tailed ducks and I have a particular fondness for dippers (such a strange life style for a mid-size passerine) but had never seen this one before. Thanks.
Beautiful. The Eurasian Golden-Plover is spectacular!
Criminey! What glorious photographs and what a bunch of questions these birds have opened to ecologists, behavioral biologists, evolutionary biologists.
Thanks.
Any year in which you can see five short-eared owls in a morning is a good year, voles or not.
Great photos. The Arctic bird fauna seems to be underappreciated; this series helps to combat that.