VARANGER
A unique Spring/Winter week, where we have selected some of the very best bird and landscape photo opportunities on the Varanger Peninsula in Norway. Up here, the taiga forest meets the windswept, snow-covered tundra and the dramatically rugged coastlines of the Arctic Ocean. Ancient agricultural lands dating from long before the Viking Age stretch in a thin border along the coast. Inside of that, after a narrow fringe of low birch forest, the open tundra stretches mile after mile within the Varanger Peninsula National Park. At this time of year, these are a snowy winter landscapes in sub-zero temperatures, in wonderful Arctic winter light that can offer strong pastel colors, long shadows, dramatic clouds, snowfall and brilliant photo opportunities of many different kinds. The snow-covered tundra landscape shows us the still reasonably undisturbed quality of the Arctic wilderness up here.

KING EIDER, STELLER´S EIDER, COMMON EIDER AND LONG-TAILED DUCK
We photograph the almost unbeliavably elegant Arctic ducks King eider, Steller’s eider, Common eider and Long-tailed duck from custom-built floating pontoon hides, where we lie, dry, safe and comfortable, right at birds’ eye level just above the waterline. These world-unique and world-famous floating hides give us phenomenal opportunities for close encounters with these truly picturesque High Arctic ducks, so we decided to invest two days in these hides, in order to maximize our chances of fine pictures of these charismatic birds, taking into account the always fickle factors of light and weather.

HORNØYA
With its handsome lighthouse and its charismatic location, right at the final outer skerries before the Arctic Ocean, this little island is one of Europe’s finest and most accessible seabird colonies and also Norway’s easternmost point, in line with Istanbul! Everyone with a passion for the natural world, should at some point in life treat themselves to visit a teeming and pulsating bird cliff, where there is action in all directions, all around the clock.

We step ashore in the intense and fabulously well-populated bird colony here, with its 80,000 pairs of Brünnichs guillemot, Shag, Puffin, Cormorant, Common guillemot, Black guillemots Razorbill and Kittiwake, just during the time when the Puffins usually arrive in large numbers for the breeding season. Hornøya is often considered having Norway’s finest bird cliffs. The seabirds here also usually make themselves very easily available for fantastic photo opportunities. The birds nest almost on the path and have very different things to think about, than about us, almost like in the Galápagos Islands. For those who shoot film, do not forget to bring the microphone, because the soundscape here is absolutely stunning and the din intense. Often a Gyrfalcon or White-tailed eagle comes by in search of prey in the slopes of the bird mountain and not infrequently they show up at fairly good photo distances, as long as you are quick and observant enough and have a little luck …

THE TUNDRA
We also meet the landscapes of the snow- and wind-shaped Arctic Tundra in several places up here, both in the mountains and down at the edge of the mountain birch forest. A snowmobile sled ride takes us to a bird feeding site near a mountain stream, where good chances are usually possible to photograph species such as Hoary redpoll, Common redpoll, Siberian tit and Willow tit. There is also often a Hawk owl or two around here and sometimes Ermine or Willow ptarmigan are seen here.

THE TAIGA FOREST
In Pasvik National Park we meet the wild Taiga forest with its Scots pines, plus some of its winter bird species. Here we go for a snowmobile sled ride out into the woods and take photos at a proven feeding site for squirrels and birds such as Siberian tit, Pine grosbeak, Willow tit, Siberian jay and sometimes a Hawk owl paying a visit. At times Willow grouse hang around here, in their snow-white winter dress.