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.

Beyond 66.5 Degrees North - Day 5: Mission Accomplised

Before we went to sleep, I asked Adam what time he wanted to get up the following morning for our return to the Ruff lek,  'I will leave that decision to you' came the reply.  Something that he might not ask me to do again as I set the alarm to 2:30 am. On waking after a brief sleep, I looked outside to be surprised by seeing the warm soft glow of the low night time sun and light winds which was at odds with the forecast. Conditions looked ideal for our morning session.

We hit the road eastward and only paused briefly en route to the lek, to photograph a Willow Grouse next to the dirt track across the tundra. This was the first time I had managed to get one of these birds in front of the camera and also a first of photographing wildlife at 3 am! These birds are identical to the UK's Red Grouse except of course for the white feathers on the body.  A good start to the day.

Eventually our slow bumpy journey came to an end and we reached the end of the rough dirt track and despite our earlier start there were still three Ruff on the lek. We were slightly better prepared for this visit as we had use of a pop up dome hide but still slightly under-equipped for a comfortable hide session as we only had one chair and one monopod between us. We gathered our kit together, popped up the hide, got inside and with it balanced on our heads and slowly shuffled towards the lek. We kept an eye on the birds throughout move towards them and occasionally paused to allow them to get accustomed to the advancing 'shrub'. To someone viewing it would no doubt have been a comical sight. Our slightly raised position from the pop-up hide gave us a good view across the slightly undulating terrain of the lek.

I suppose this would be a good time to try describe a ruff lek in a bit more detail to give you a feeling of what was in front of us. The lek is a relatively small area where the male birds gather and display and fight to try and show their dominance and increase the number of females they breed with. The male ruff are all individual in the colour combination of their look but can be broadly divided into three types. Those with black or ginger coloured neck and head feathers tend to be territorial on the lek and hold and defend a small area of around 1 square metre.

Those with white coloured neck and head plumage are known as satellite males and are non-territorial on the lek.

Also about 10 years ago it was discovered there is a third type of male that resembles a female. The white satellite birds are tolerated by the darker territorial birds as the great number of birds present on the lek the great number of females that will generally visit. Not all mating occurs on the lek and only a small proportion of the males attend the lek site, the birds also employ other strategies including direct pursuit of females or wait for them at good feeding sites.

With ruff it is all about visuals with the males and they go through a wide range of elaborate posturing to each other which includes jumping, standing upright, wing fluttering, lunging and crouching all of which is generally performed in an eerie silence.

Sometimes a male will crouch and another will go up to it and they will be literally head to head.

For a lot of the time the lek will be relatively quiet with males stood around, occasionally there will be some fluttering and posturing as one of the satellite males moves around. It is when a female arrives at the lek that everything bursts into life and frenzied activity of display. An incoming female will often have two or three males in pursuit. Fights between males are infrequent, short in duration, ferocious and messy affairs. The fights are also difficult to photograph as they can erupt anywhere across the frenzied activity going on across the whole lek.  They were made more difficult to capture as we had camera in silent mode to reduce potential for disturbance with the corresponding reduced frame rate.

During the session Adam said he had seen a photograph in a book of a Ruff which had a purple iridescence around its dark collar and that was one he would love to see. He named this bird 'The Purple Prince'. There was no sign of such a bird on the lek and after humming 'Purple Rain' a couple of times I suggested that 'The Purple Prince' was prehaps a myth. A few more photographs below to finish off from the many we took that morning. I make no apologies for the number of photos in this post of these fascinating, beautiful and flamboyant birds.

A ruff lek is truly one of nature's spectacles and a honour to witness at close quarters. Our primary goal of the trip was well and truly mission accomplished. The memories of that morning session with the ruff will stay with me forever.

With the morning progressing and activity subsiding we decided bring the session to an end and backed away under the hide. Back at the car it was good to get out of the confines of the hide. While battling with packing the springy hide away into its bag, I heard a Bluethroat singing in the willow scrub near the car. This was another species high on my list to photograph whilst in Norway. So I spent the next 30 minutes trying to get some images of what proved to be a very mobile bird but managed to get a few images in the end.

The early start and intensity of the morning session were starting to take their toll and fatigue was setting in rapidly, so we decided we would make our way back to the hotel for some rest and try and catch up on some missing sleep. It was probably nearly lunchtime, after the usual image download and back-up process before my head hit the pillow. We re-emerged late afternoon and decided we would get some food in Vadso before heading out for a local evening session on the nature reserve next to the hotel. As we were  at the restaurant before 6 pm it meant we had a wide choice of food available beyond the post-6pm pizza only menu. We both settled for a huge steaming bowl of pasta.

After dinner, we took a drive up around the hills and lakes to the north of Vadso to see if there was much photography potential up there but it was relatively quiet. So we headed back to Vadsoya Island and the nature reserve.  Once on the reserve, we headed our  separate ways. Adam decided to make the use of the remaining pop up hide hire and try and  photograph some Hooded Crows, albeit unsuccessfully as it turned out, and I spent my time stalking the Mountain Hares on foot which went reasonably well. The Mountain Hares proved to be typically tricky to approach and I did have one lucky moment when one came right by me and I managed to get some full frame images.

During that evening session the weather was already starting to deteriorate with the a freshening wind developing from the north. The forecast for the next day was looking very grim with 40 mph winds and heavy rain forecast and photography prospects looking very poor. Would the generally unreliable weather forecast be right? All would be revealed when we rolled up the black out blinds in the morning.