As always my eyes are on the lookout for birds so despite our target being walrus and possible Polar bear my lens was drawn to the Barnacle geese resting on the highest area of land that was covered with a thin layer of vegetation supported by their guano. We had seen little by way of any vegetation while in the ice so it was refreshing to see some greenery.

The next birds to cross my radar were episodic flights of passing Common Eiders. The females are superbly camouflaged when at rest and the black and white males with touches of green are spectacular.

There was also a steady cycle of feeding Arctic terns dipping into the sea along the edge of the beach.

The tern’s fishing seemed regularly successful with them emerging with small fish gripped in their bills. This gave the opportunity for some practice in tracking despite the backlighting making exposure a bit challenging to render detail on the dark nearside of their faces

Backlighting is always interesting to explore and in this case gave some nice reflected highlights from the sea to render as background.

Photos with Nikon Z9 and Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR S + 1.4x teleconverter