Spitsbergen Arctic fox, eider ducks, snow buntings

This 2016 video is called Arctic foxes – SVALBARD.

After the ptarmigan love story, in the morning of 3 June 2013, we walked down again to Longyearbyen, the capital of Svalbard.

On a mountain slope runs an Arctic fox, still mainly in its winter coat; with a prey in its muzzle.

One of the places where people regularly see rare ivory gulls is near the husky dog cages, just east of Longyearbyen village.

No ivory gull this morning again; like last night. Again, we do see hundreds of common eider ducks there.

A few glaucous gulls among the ducks. The one on the photo has been ringed. Probably, looking for eider eggs now that the nesting season has begun.

A few weeks later into the nesting season, the male eiders will have to leave. They will molt, meaning that they won’t be able to fly. It is safer to be at sea then.

Also at the eider nesting colony, a male and a female snow bunting move quickly on a woodpile.

A reindeer near the eider colony as well.

Still, no ivory gull. Will we find them in Adventdalen valley, more to the east? We go there.

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