I’ve travelled to both poles to watch the extraordinary wildlife that inhabits these icy regions. In this webinar, I share my experiences of seeing polar bears in the Arctic and penguins in the Antarctic along with tips on how you can follow in my footsteps.
Arctic Wildlife
My trip to watch polar bears was organised by Wildfoot Travel and took place in 2023. We set off from London with a short flight to Oslo and then on to Longyearbyen, Svalbard, where I watched barnacle geese under the midnight sun. On board the M/V Sea Spirit My home for the next 11 days was a luxury ship as it circumnavigated Spitsbergen. The first stop was New Alesund. Now a research centre, this former mining town is famous for being the starting point of Admundsen’s polar expeditions. Here I saw Svalbard reindeer, a subspecies of the reindeer found in the rest of the Arctic circle. Shorter and stockier, these animals have thicker coats to survive the – extremely – harsh winters.
Arctic fox
The next landing was Fjortende Julibukta Bay, where I encountered an arctic fox and her cubs. Seabirds As we sailed we spotted fin whales and perched on the glaciers thousands of seabirds: kittiwakes, artic terns, skuas and little auks. The next leg of the journey took us to Alkefjellet where the towering, gothic-like cliffs were covered in about 60,000 pairs of Brunnich’s guillemots and at Torellneset were literally hundreds of walrus hauled out on the beach. The noise was an experience! Best of all, of course, were the polar bears and the amazing sight of a female with two cubs. Antarctic In 2007, I visited the Antarctic touring the Falcon Islands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula itself.
Penguins
The penguins were the highlight of this trip and so Volunteer Point, which is the only place that king penguins breed, was a must. Here I also saw Magellanic (also known as Jackass penguins because of the braying sounds they make) and Gentoo penguins and on Saunders Island I saw Rockhopper penguins.. it was brilliant to watch hopping up the cliffs to the colony.
Elephant seals
Saunders was also home to enormous elephant seals and as we sailed to South Georgia we watched whales and albatross and giant petrels followed the boat. At St Andrews Bay there were fur seals and about 300,000 king penguins breeding. The chicks take over a year to reach maturity and often line the edge of the water staying out of the way of the hustle and bustle. The closer we got to the South Pole, the colder and icier it got. Here I saw skuas and a colony of Adelie penguins and Macaroni penguins, which were like Rockhoppers on speed!
