Nothing in the Arctic is as loud, as close or as certain as a bird cliff in June. A wall of basalt with sixty thousand pairs of guillemots on it, the smell, the noise, the foxes working the base of the cliff and a Zodiac drifting beneath it with the engine off, is the encounter that converts people who thought they did not care about birds. This is where the great colonies are, when they are full, and the birds worth knowing before you go.
In short
Seabirds are the Arctic’s surest wildlife. The cliffs are full from May to early August on every coast the ships sail, and the species list runs from the Arctic tern, which flies to Antarctica and back every year, to the ivory gull, which almost nobody has seen.
The great cliffs
Alkefjellet, Svalbard
A kilometre of basalt columns on the Hinlopen Strait, home to around 60,000 pairs of Brünnich’s guillemots stacked on every ledge, with kittiwakes above and Arctic foxes below waiting for what falls. The Zodiacs cruise the base of the cliff at a few metres in July, and the sound is the memory. Reached on the ten-night and longer Svalbard voyages, Ultimate Svalbard and Unexplored Svalbard among them.
Bjørnøya, Bear Island
The lonely island halfway between Norway and Svalbard, passed on the sail-north voyages from Tromsø and Reykjavík, with cliffs on its southern end that hold one of the largest seabird colonies in the North Atlantic: guillemots, kittiwakes, fulmars and little auks in the hundreds of thousands, and a fog that lifts to show them.
Látrabjarg and the Westman Islands, Iceland
Látrabjarg in the Westfjords is the largest bird cliff in Europe, fourteen kilometres long and 440 metres high, with puffins on the grass at the top close enough to touch and razorbills and guillemots below. The Westman Islands hold the largest puffin colony on earth. Iceland’s eight to ten million puffins are on the cliffs from May to mid-August and gone by September; read Iceland and Jan Mayen for the timing.
Prince Leopold Island and Akpatok, Canadian Arctic
Prince Leopold Island at the mouth of Prince Regent Inlet is a bird sanctuary of sheer limestone, with thick-billed murres, kittiwakes and fulmars in the hundreds of thousands, passed on the Northwest Passage voyages. Akpatok Island in Ungava Bay is the same cliff with polar bears at the bottom, in late August, waiting for the chicks.
The birds worth knowing
- Brünnich’s guillemot: the penguin of the north, black and white, diving to 100 metres, nesting on bare ledges. The chicks jump from the cliff at three weeks, flightless, and swim away with their fathers in late July and early August.
- Little auk: the most numerous seabird in the Arctic, a starling-sized black and white bird nesting in scree slopes by the million in Svalbard and Greenland, seen in clouds over the water at dawn.
- Atlantic puffin: Iceland, Norway and Bjørnøya, in burrows on the grass above the cliffs, from May to mid-August.
- Arctic tern: the longest migration of any animal, from the Arctic to Antarctica and back, more than 70,000 kilometres a year. Nesting on the beaches and tundra of every coast, and diving at anyone who walks too close.
- Ivory gull: pure white, rare, a bird of the high ice that follows the ship on the Pole voyages for the seals it disturbs.
- Northern fulmar: the grey glider that follows every ship in every sea, stiff-winged, and spits oil at anything that threatens its nest.
- Kittiwake, glaucous gull, Sabine’s gull, skuas: the gulls of the cliffs and the pirates that rob them.
- Snowy owl, gyrfalcon, white-tailed eagle: the hunters of the tundra and the fjords, seen in Greenland and Canada in a good lemming year, and the eagles around the harbours of Newfoundland.
- Svalbard ptarmigan: the only bird that winters in Svalbard, white in winter, found on the tundra behind Longyearbyen.
When the cliffs are full
The birds arrive in April and May, the eggs are laid in June, the chicks hatch in late June and July and leave the cliffs from late July. By mid-August the cliffs are emptying and by September they are quiet, which is the trade the autumn voyages make for the aurora. For the full cliff, with the noise and the foxes and the chicks jumping, late June to late July is the fortnight, and it is the same fortnight as the midnight sun and the walrus.
How a cliff is visited
By Zodiac, slowly, at a distance the expedition leader sets, with the engine off beneath the colony. Svalbard law now keeps ships to five knots within 500 metres of the listed cliffs in the breeding season, and the lines we sell keep the Zodiacs quiet. On land the colonies of little auks in the scree are walked past on the tundra, and the terns on the beaches are given their way. The naturalists carry the scope, and the guests with binoculars see the most.
Seeing them well
- Binoculars first, the same 8x42 you brought for the bear. A cliff through glass is a city.
- A hat with a brim under the colony, and a hood for the terns.
- Dawn on deck: the little auks and the guillemots stream between the cliffs and the sea at four in the morning, under the midnight sun.
- The crossings: the gannets of the Iceland coast and the fulmars of the Greenland Sea are seen from the stern rail on the sea days.
Segelsallskapet Fjord, East Greenland. An Arctic tern hovers against a dark background, photographed on a Swan Hellenic SH Vega landing.
Questions we are asked about birds
Are there penguins in the Arctic?
No. The guillemot is the closest thing, upright on its ledge, and the great auk, which was the north’s flightless penguin, was hunted to extinction in 1844 on an island off Iceland.
When is the best time for puffins?
May to mid-August in Iceland and Norway, with July the fullest month. They are gone from the cliffs by September.
Which voyage is best for birds?
A Svalbard circumnavigation in July for Alkefjellet and the auks, the sail north from Reykjavík for Látrabjarg and Bjørnøya, the Passage in August for Prince Leopold Island. We tell you which sailing suits what you want to see.
Do we need to be birders to enjoy it?
No. A bird cliff by Zodiac is the most visceral hour of a Svalbard week whether or not you can name the birds, and the naturalists will name them for you.
Read whales of the Arctic for the other great sighting of the sea days, or when to go for the month.