Crossing the Barents Sea to Franz Josef Land
Our remarkably smooth and comfortable passage over the Barents Sea to Franz Josef Land continued. The Kapitan Dranitsyn increased its speed to a very impressive 17.5 knots, leaving degrees of latitude in our wake. The navigation bridge proved to be a fine vantage point from which to watch for birds and marine mammals. We were not alone in the Barents Sea. A group of fall migrant purple sandpipers, one of the few land birds to breed in the very far North, joined the ship, seemingly unaware that we were carrying them back towards their breeding islands and thus in the wrong direction. We were surrounded by hordes of kittiwakes, fulmars, and pomarine jaegers, the former capturing prey disturbed by our passage, the latter attempting to steal food from other birds. Pomarine jaegers make an honest living on their Arctic breeding grounds where they prey on lemmings, but during the rest of the year their kleptoparasitic tendencies come to the fore and they range over the world’s oceans stealing hard-earned prey from other birds. All of these birds entered into the fine lecture on Arctic Seabirds given by our Russian Naturalist and new friend, Maria Gavrilo.
Our remarkably smooth and comfortable passage over the Barents Sea to Franz Josef Land continued. The Kapitan Dranitsyn increased its speed to a very impressive 17.5 knots, leaving degrees of latitude in our wake. The navigation bridge proved to be a fine vantage point from which to watch for birds and marine mammals. We were not alone in the Barents Sea. A group of fall migrant purple sandpipers, one of the few land birds to breed in the very far North, joined the ship, seemingly unaware that we were carrying them back towards their breeding islands and thus in the wrong direction. We were surrounded by hordes of kittiwakes, fulmars, and pomarine jaegers, the former capturing prey disturbed by our passage, the latter attempting to steal food from other birds. Pomarine jaegers make an honest living on their Arctic breeding grounds where they prey on lemmings, but during the rest of the year their kleptoparasitic tendencies come to the fore and they range over the world’s oceans stealing hard-earned prey from other birds. All of these birds entered into the fine lecture on Arctic Seabirds given by our Russian Naturalist and new friend, Maria Gavrilo.
