07 Jul 2014

White Whales, Clear Seas

It has been difficult to find the time to update this blog recently, so apologies to my followers! The last few days of the ‘In the Wake of Bering’ expedition were very busy as we made numerous landings along the Koryak coast. One landing was particularly memorable for the number of walrus that were present. It is a number of years since we have recorded walrus in this fiord and never in the numbers that we had on this landing. The undoubted highlight for many however was a number of clear sightings of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, arguably the world’s rarest wader and one of the most threatened. Everybody in our group had great views of this bird in full breeding plumage. To cap off the day we watched a pod of Beluga (white) Whales feeding in crystal clear water as we returned to the ship. As this species is often found in discoloured and murky water it is unusual to get such clear sightings, making this encounter especially satisfying. Our expeditioners have now disembarked and the vessel sails on a scientific expedition to the Bering Strait region this evening. There technicians will undertake the annual monitoring of a long term climate change project.