One of the top animals on our list to photograph has been the “Ice Bear” or Polar Bear. These elusive creatures are getting harder and harder to spot in the wild but we knew we could count on Lindblad Expedition’s National Geographic Explorer and their crew to find them for us. We travelled on the National Geographic Explorer to Antarctica last year and had an amazing time. The ship, crew, staff, Nat Geo photo instructors and Antarcitca itself was one of the most amazing places we’ve been to. Many of the passengers on the ship with us in the Antarctic raved about the trip to the Arctic. Since seeing Polar Bears was on our wish list we booked the trip immediately after returning home.
Polar Bear in field of arctic flowers
Lindblad calls the trip to the arctic the Land of the Ice Bears. They market the trip as an 11 day tour of the Svalbard archipelago. In actuality, you only have 5 days on the ship searching for the elusive Ice Bear. All of the other days are travel days or embarking/disembarking from the ship. The trip was still amazing even though it was shorter than we expected. An extra 2 days at sea exploring the archipelago would have been perfect. It would have allowed extra time to search for Polar Bears, Walruses, Whales and most importantly not feel rushed when trying to get that perfect shot. Overall, the photography experience in Antarctica was far superior and I came away from that trip with much better pictures than this one. Even though it was only a 5 day trip they packed as much into every moment as they could and I did end up with a few good photos.
Over the next week or so I’ll do a few posts that describes what we did and what we saw each day we were on the ship. Similar to what I did for our expedition to Antarctica.
The photo instructors onboard the ship put together a video slideshow of the passengers best photos from the trip. Miki and I submitted some of our favorites. We tried to submit pictures that other people wouldn’t have posted so we tried to get a little creative and kept the wildlife pictures to a minimum since everyone else had lots of them.
Some of my favorites.
- Polar Bears above.
Arctic Landscape
The Ice of the Arctic
Waterfall flowing off the Austfonna ice cap. Largest ice cap by area in Europe.
Kayaking in the Arcitc. (Gopro camera attached to end of kayak paddle)
The main reason for our trip to India was to see the royal bengal tiger. These are the biggest of the big cats. The national parks in India have a lot of other wildlife as you saw from my previous posts but the main attraction are the tigers. I didn’t have high expectation to get a lot of great photos of tigers but with a little bit of luck, a bit of skill, the right equipment, a little patience, a good guide, and some crazy drivers we were able to get some of my best wildlife photos to date. Professional wildlife photographer Talat Khalid of Wild Life Photo Tours arranged this trip for us to visit his two favorite spots for tiger photography. Bandhavhargh and Kanha tiger reservers. As you can see below, there is a good reason these are his favorite parks.
Tigress - Aama nalah (our first tiger sighting)
We saw a total of 13 different tigers over our 10 days in the parks. Some we saw on multiple occasions and every one of the sightings was an amazing experience. The tigress pictured above is named Aama nalah for the area of Bandhavgarh that she claims as her territory. She was the first of our 13 tiger sightings and it was amazing. She was huge!!! (most girls probably wouldn’t want you to say to them that but I think its ok in the tiger world). She came so close to our vehicle and eventually walked right in front of us. If the trip would have ended with just this one tiger sighting it would have been worth it. They are truly magnificent animals. It didn’t stop there though… it only got better…
Tiger - "New Male"
Tiger - New Male profile
“New Male” pictured above, is the son of “B2″ who is the son of “Charger” who is arguably the most famous tiger in India given his many appearances on national geographic, BBC, etc. Charger passed away several years ago after his son, B2, killed him. B2 is 17 years old now, the same age as his father when he killed him. Sadly, history is about to repeat itself. New Male is expanding his territory and needs to kill his father (B2) in order to get the mating rights to all the females in the territory. We witnessed one such encounter.
All of the sudden we saw B2 run out of the woods and our guide knew that New Male must be chasing him. A fight was almost sure to happen, he said.
Tiger B2 running from New Male
B2 ran across the road dangerously close to a vehicle. A few years ago one tourist got mauled when a tiger jumped into the vehicle when being chased. A very simliar situation to today.
Tiger B2 running close to vehicle
Then out of the corner of my left eye I spotted another tiger. It was New Male. My camera was still focused on where B2 ran across the road so I just kept the shutter pressed and captured the action at my cameras maximum 9 frames per second as he disappeared into the trees after B2.
Tiger New Male chasing B2
We feared the worst. We thought it was over for B2. New Male was sure to catch him. He was only 50 meters behind and catching up. We quickly moved our vehicle to where the guide thought they might come out of the woods… if B2 would even make it out. About 10 minutes later we found B2 walking along the road. Looking back to see if he son was still close behind.
Tiger B2 looking for his son
You could see the fear in his eyes. He was worried. He knew what was about to happen. However, what happened next surprised us all.
New Male came out of the woods but he seemed to be confused. He was walking in the wrong direction. He was still very close to his father but he seemed to have lost his scent. He walked up and down the road around our vehicle but then eventually found a nice spot in the shade to lay down.
Tiger - New Male laying in the shade
B2 was safe… at least for today.
Tiger - New Male
While we were all sympathetic for B2, there was no denying that New Male is a magnificent tiger. He was much bigger than he father, younger, and more muscular. Just look at those canines. Every part of this tiger was massive. Even though they are pure breed killing machines they have a lot in common with tame house cats if you watch them long enough.
Tiger - New Male winking
Tiger - New Male (thats a lot of tiger drool)
He had a lot of foam-ish looking saliva hanging on his mouth and just like a ordinary house got he got rid of it with a couple little head flicks.
We had a few days before our India Tiger Safari started (to be posted about later) and needed something to do near Delhi. Since Agra is close to Delhi I thought it would be a good idea to see the Taj Mahal.
A quick google search turned up a company called Delhi Magic. I e-mailed them to ask about doing an overnight tour to visit the Taj, Agra Fort, etc. After a few e-mails back and forth I asked the question. ”Does this also include all entrance fees? Taj, Agra Fort, etc…”. To which the owner of Delhi Magic responded, “No they are not. It’s a substantial amount of money and if we had wanted to include them, we would have specified it.” That response really put me off as being very rude and unprofessional. She could have simply said no they are not and then simply listed the various entrance fees. Maybe its a language thing but either way I wasn’t about to give my money to them. I’m glad they ticked me off because the guide I found in the end was fantastic.
I then went to the tripadvisor forums and found a bunch of glowing reviews of a local guide in Agra, Sunil Gupta. He was an excellent guide and helped arrange everything for our overnight trip. If you are heading to Agra, look no further for a guide. Sunil is your man. You will be very happy with your choice. You can contact him via his tripadvisor profile. Sunil arranged for us to visit the following during our overnight tour: the Agra Fort, Baby Taj, Taj Mahal, Fatehpursikri, and Akbar’s Mausoleum.
After a pickup from our hotel in Delhi at 7:30 am we made the 4 hour drive down to Agra. Our first visit, after checking in at the amazing The Oberoi Amarvilas, was the Agra Fort. For a little history of the fort check out the detailed wikipedia article.
View of the Taj from the Agra Fort
The detail of the inlaid semi precious stones on the walls of all of these sights are amazing. It’s hard to imagine the amount of skill and manpower needed to create all of this. Given that a small table top with this type of detail can easily cost over $10,000, I can’t imagine what it would cost today to replicate some of these sights.
inlaid semiprecious stone carvings
Which one to buy??
Since we were so intrigued he took us to a shop that still does this type of work. I’m always a little skeptical when a guide takes us to “a shop he knows”. However, with Sunil, he wasn’t pushy and only took us there because we wanted to go. There was never any pressure to buy anything… even though we did buy a cute little elephant. Actually it wasn’t so little… of course she chose the biggest one on the left.
Taking a brief break from the Antarctica posts to share our trip to Tibet and Chengdu, China over Chinese New Year last weekend. I’ll finish up the Antartica posts after I finish this brief trip review from Tibet and Chengdu.
Panda Base
Through a comical series of flight cancelations by Air China (an unbelievably disorganized airline) we had an unexpected free afternoon in Chengdu. A quick google search turned up the Panda Base. We’ve never seen Panda’s before so I figured it was worth a visit. I also found that you could get your picture taken with a Panda which I thought would be very unique experience.
Baby Panda at the Chengdu Panda Base
Once we arrived at the Panda Base we quickly went to the Nursery where they kept the baby Pandas. This was also the location where you could take photos with the baby pandas. I knew you had to pay extra to take a picture with them but was a little surprised when they asked for a $150 USD “donation”. I thought that was pretty steep… especially for China. I knew Miki would like it so I went ahead and paid the donation fee.
Our time soon came up to take a photo with the baby Panda but I got stopped at the door and they said you only paid for one. I explained that I didn’t want to hold the Panda. I just wanted to take the pictures of Miki holding it. My negotiation skills failed. I had to hand over my camera to one of the staff so he could take the pictures. I would have gone in with Miki but I was out of money and the nearest ATM was a 30 minute drive away. I didn’t care much about holding a Panda but I didn’t want to hand over my Canon 5d Mark II with 24-105 L lens. I’m pretty controlling over who touches my camera… basically nobody
I did eventually hand over the camera and the pictures were very funny. The baby Panda was a girl named Ya Yun. She was born on September 9th, 2010.
Baby Panda "Ya Yun" at the Chengdu Panda Base
The Panda seemed to be pretty hungry because it kept trying to take a bite out of Miki.
The first attack…
Panda nibble #1
The staff had to step in to help remove the panda from her cheek.
Panda nursery staff saving Miki from a panda attack
Maybe Miki didn’t learn to keep her face away from the Panda’s mouth? Maybe the Panda was very hungry? Maybe Miki smelled like Bamboo? I don’t know but the Panda went in for another nibble and had to be removed again. She got a good hold of Miki this time.
Panda nursery staff saving Miki from a panda attack... again.
Obviously the panda couldn’t fit Miki’s whole cheek in her mouth so next she went after something a little more bit sized… her nose.
Baby panda taking a bit of Miki's nose
and she had to be rescued again.
Panda nursery staff saving Miki from a Panda attack... AGAIN
The Panda wanted to show Miki there were no hard feelings so she gave Miki a nice goodbye kiss. A kiss from a panda with some crazy little beady eyes and a few teeth are showing too… we can just say it was a nice goodbye kiss
Ya Yun's goodbye kiss
The “attacks” look worse than they were. The panda was only playing and none of the bites were hard. Even though the main destination of our weekend away was Tibet, this was the highlight of the trip. The Panda Base is a nice little zoo (if you can even call it a zoo since they only have pandas). If you happen to be in Chengdu you should definitely visit.
On the way out of the Panda Base there was a very pathetic looking man selling Panda junk souvenirs. I really hope he lost a bet with his friends or he’s on some candid camera show. Really… what grown man would even wear that stuff.
A very pathetic looking guy selling panda stuff. I bet his parents are proud.
Here are a few more pics from around the Chengdu Panda Base.
We visited Port Lockroy in the morning. Port Lockroy was a British base in Antarctica from 1944 to the mid 60s. It was then abandoned and fell into disrepair until the British Antarctic Heritage Trust stepped in to restore the base. It is restored very well and shows how some of the early scientists lived in Antarctica. It’s only staffed during the summer months. It’s pretty isolated but the 4 girls on the island get plenty of ships coming in to visit. They also have a couple thousand penguins and beautiful landscapes to keep them occupied.
Port Lockroy Landscape
It also serves as a post office and has a nice little gift shop. Yep, there is a even a gift shop in Antarctica where you can buy crappy souvenirs that your wife will save for years.
After Miki mailed her postcard we were off to Cuverville Island. This island had some amazing landscapes and I went a little crazy with the panoramic shots.
Cuverville Island Panoramic
Cuverville Island Panoramic
We spent most of the time on Cuverville just sitting on the beach watching the penguins coming in and out of the water. We’ve spent so much of the trip running from one side of an island to the other but just sitting there on the beach was one of the best experiences. It also provided some of the best chances to photograph even more penguins.
Gentoo Penguin - water beads
Gentoo Penguin
Gentoo Penguin running out of the water
There was also a large group of male Skuas about that were making a lot of noise. Lots of fighting, flapping of wings and just general chaos. The penguins didn’t seem so bothered by this group probably because they focused on showing off to the other skuas rather that eating penguins.
Skua
Miki bought these penguin socks and for the whole trip she kept telling me she wanted to get a photo of her socks next to the penguins. After realizing she wasn’t joking I got a couple shots for her.
Penguin Socks
This was our last day on the Antarctic continent so we wanted to squeeze every last second we could out of our time on the island. I was able to get a few last landscapes in before the final Zodiac left.
B&W Cuverville Island Landscape
B&W Cuverville Island Landscape
iceberg landscape
The final panoramic shot was taken with my infrared converted 30D.
Infrared Cuverville Panoramic
Daily Expedition Report and more pics after the break
This was a pretty spectacular christmas day. We woke up when the expedition leader announced on the loudspeaker that we had a pod of killer whales off our bow. Better than waking up to an alarm clock…
Entering the Lemaire Channel
We then headed into the Lemaire Channel. The captain had heard earlier reports that it was too packed with ice and we couldn’t make it through. When we approached the Lemaire Channel another ship, the Ushuaia, had already turned around. We hadn’t seen another ship until now and we all were pretty disappointed because it seemed like we couldn’t make it through.
The Ushuaia turning back from the Lemaire Channel
However, the captain was determined to get through and through some skillful maneuvering and crashing through even more ice…
Captain maneuvering through the Lemaire Channel
We did eventually make it through the Lemaire Channel. To bad for the guests on the Ushuaia. This is one of the many reasons to choose the NatGeo Explorer over the other ships that travels to Antarctica. This ship has proven it can go were others can not.
Lemaire Channel
The Lemaire Channel had a lot of wildlife. I felt a little bad sometimes when a seal would be taking a nap on an iceberg but was in our way. The captain would try to maneuver around the seal but sometimes it just wasn’t possible. This seal eventually slid off the iceberg and went to find a quieter place to take a nap.
Seal trying to take a nap in the sun
Miki taking a picture of me taking the above picture.
Miki taking a picture of me taking a picture of the Lemaire Channel
After making it through the Lemaire Channel we made it to Booth Island. We had the most spectacular light with the most dramatic cloud cover. We had some amazing penguin and seal spottings while out on the Zodiacs. I shot over a 1000 pictures in one afternoon. Don’t worry… I wont post them all.
The wildlife taken from a zodiac near Booth Island.
Yawning Seal
The 3 Penguins
Headless Penguin
Jumping Penguins
and for the dramatic iceberg shots of the day.
Antarctic Iceberg Landscape
Antarctic Iceberg Landscape
When we got back to ship a couple of people were referring to our boat as the big lens zodiac. The shortest lens on our zodiac was a 400mm. Antarctica tends to bring a well travelled crowd and most of the photographers on board have already been on safari (some several times) which requires some big glass. Antarctica is no different. The bigger and faster lens you can afford to bring down the better.
Big lens boat
While I was on the zodiac cruise with the Ira Block (the NatGeo photographer on board) and the other big lens crew, Miki went on a hike to the top of Booth Island.
Penguin Highway
Hiking on Booth Island
I also took a few pictures with my infrared converted 30D when we were travelling back through the Lemaire Channel. My infrared camera spent most of the time in the camera bag because I’ve had limited success with it. Even with the stunning landscape of Antarctica, I’m still not satisfied with the results. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but I think simple black and white photos are much more appealing.
Antarctica in Infrared
Antarctica in Infrared
The daily expedition report and a few more photos after the break.
Early in the morning we arrived at Deception Island. This island has a lot of history for the early explorers and also served as a whaling station for several of the early whaling operations. All of that has stopped now and after some recent volcanic eruptions only 2 research stations are still left on the island.
It was a very flat and grey overcast day when we arrived. There was no wildlife on the island. Just a lot of grey volcanic ash and little bit of snow. Obviously this doesn’t make for great photos but Miki was able to stop some interesting texture in the ash which I think makes an interesting photo. This is a color photo. It hasn’t been processed as a black and white photo. Just shows how flat the light was that day.
Color landscape photo of Deception Island
There is still a lot of thermal activity from the volcano which does produce some “hot springs”. Hot Springs is a bit of misnomer. The first 3 cm of water very close to shore is very hot but beyond that its as cold as you would imagine the water in Antarctica would be. None the less… we join some of our hearty travelers and went for a dip.
Taking the Polar Plunge
Miki enjoying the Antarctic "Hot Springs"
After we enjoyed the polar plunge we continued onto Lindblad Cove where we would spend Christmas eve. On the way there we spotted a pod of humpback whales feeding on Krill. This whale also got an frightened bird for desert.
Humpback Whale almost eating a bird
Humpback whales catching krill with bubbles
The whales use bubbles to gather the Krill together and the swim up through the ball of krill with their mouths open to scoop up as much krill is they can in one big gulp.
Humpback whale feeding on Krill
Dennis, our undersea specialist wanted to catch some Krill for us to show what they looked like. He hopped into one of the Zodiacs to get some for us and had a close encounter with the humpbacks. Dennis is a great guy and is always one of the highlights during the daily recap of the days events. However, we were all secretly hoping the whales would have gotten even a little closer to cause some real action for him
Catching Krill
He did catch some Krill for us and its surprising how small these things are. Amazing to think that these tiny things are what massive humpback whales and a lot of other species live off of.
Krill
and as soon as the whales showed up… they were off to feed elsewhere.
Humpback Whale Tail
Next up was Lindblad Cove and this was one of the highlights of the trip. The cove was full of us but that didn’t stop the captain. We made our way through slowly and the views were spectacular.
Panoramic of Lindblad Cove
Having this kind of view from the balcony of our room on Christmas eve was reasons this was one of the highlights of the trip.
View from the NatGeo Explorer on Christmas Eve 2010
I never got tired of taking pictures of the ice. Here are a few more of the cool ice picks from the day.
Lindblad Cove - Ice
Lindblad Cove - Ice
Lindblad Cove - Ice that looks like a whale tail
Lindblad Cove - Ice
Lindblad Cove - Ice
Daily Expedition Report and a few more pics after the break.
Today we made our way further into the Weddell sea to our morning destination of Paulet Island. Paulet Island has an huge colony of Adelie penguins. Over 100,000… penguins as far as the eye can see… and the smell to go with it.
Massive Colony of Adelie Penguins on Paulet Island
Paulet Island Panoramic Landscape
As with most days they split us up so some went on a Zodiac tour while the others went on land. We went on the Zodiac tour first and got some great penguin shots.
It’s very hard to get a picture of a penguin jumping into the water…
Adelie penguins lining up to jump into the water
…but its darn near impossible to get one jumping out of the water.
Adelie penguin jumping out of the water onto an iceberg
Another one of the many nice touches that Lindblad does is the Hot Choco Zodiac. We were out and about enjoying the scenery and taking pictures of penguins when our Zodiac driver asked if anyone wanted hot chocolate. We turned around and saw this. A very nice treat on a cold antarctic day.
Hot choco zodiac
The Brown Skua is a nasty little bird. It is especially fond of young penguin chics and is really very skillful when working in pairs to catch one of the young chics. One Skua usually distracts the parent while the other one goes in for the kill. This Skua was just finishing off a penguin.
Skua eating a penguin
The penguins are obviously very wary of Skuas as you can see here. He quickly ran away after seeing this guy even though the penguin was way to big for him to eat I don’t think he wanted to take any chances.
Penguin scared of Skua
One of my favorite birds is the Sheathbill. This bird really does eat everything including invertebrates, dead seals, chics, eggs, and even feces. The last of which has earned this bird the nickname of “shitbill”.
Sheathbill aka "shitbill"
We spotted a lot of different birds today. Another beautiful bird is the Northern Giant Petrel.
Northern Giant Petrel
Wildlife photography isn’t the only reason to visit antarctica. The landscapes are amazing. You need to be careful not to get what people call “penguin tunnel vision”. Take the time to look up and take in the surroundings. Even put the camera down… at least for a minute because you don’t want to miss panos like this.
Weddell Sea Panoramic
But dont forget about the details. Some of the most amazing shots can be found when you get up close.
Icicles
Below is the remains of the Nordenskjold Swedish Expedition from 1901 – 1904. This is quite an amazing story. You can get a brief synopsis of their story on wikipedia. It’s amazing that we are now able to travel to Antarctica without any of the hardship these explorers faced just 100 years ago.
Remains of the 1901-1904 Swedish Antarctic Expedition
After our visit to Paulet island we headed toward Joinville Island. We had a choice to go ashore and do some hiking on Joinville island or go kayaking. We choose kayaking. It’s an amazing feeling to be kayaking so close to icebergs, penguins and seals and then to realize that you are actually in Antarctica. A very peaceful afternoon.
Kayaking at Tay Head
After we finished kayaking at Tay Head we had to start heading back through the Antarctic sound and towards the western side of the Antarctica Peninsula.
On the way back we had another spotting of Orcas.
Pod of Killer Whales in the Weddell Sea
Orca bubbles
It’s hard to understand the scale of the things in Antarctica. Even being there doesn’t really help you understand. This tabular iceberg was probably taller than a 30 story building. Even having the two Killer Whale fins in the foreground can’t show the true size of the iceberg. The real amazing thing is the over 70% of the iceberg is still underwater.
Tabular Iceberg with Killer Whales
Daily Expedition Report by Karen Copeland and a few more pics after the break.
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