23rd March 2021
Alastair Chalmers - Here Today - Gone Tomorrow
Alastair is such an excellent presenter isn’t he? Last week he gave us an interesting and educational presentation accompanied by some truly superb images. The title of his talk was “Here today…Gone tomorrow” and everything was on point with the title. He presented the story as a Travelogue which gave us a feeling of the journey he and Helen had undertaken to Svalbard.
He started in Oslo and then flew to Longyearbyen - showing us Polar Bear warnings and an International Centre for seed collection which has about 5,000 seeds stored (seemed a bit low to me). The start of their trip was in some very mucky weather which did improve but also worsened again - such is the story of Arctic weather. Bad weather can give fruit to interesting images and Alastair showed us a Polar bear in misty snow - he was a bit disparaging about the image but I loved it.
The birds he showed us were numerous and included Northern Fulmar birds (a lovely image of one taking off), Brunnichs Guillemots, Gulls and Puffins and Kittiwakes, Skuas, Barnacle Geese (one of which was in the mouth of an Arctic Fox!) Arctic Terns, Red Throated Diver and a gorgeous sequence of flying Eiders. There was also a lovely image of a nest of eggs of the Purple Sandpiper. There were other birds as well but I think these mentioned are the main ones.
As well as birds there are lichens and flowers up there in the Arctic and a few to mention are Willow Bistro, Svalbard Poppy and the White Arctic Bell Heather. Very poetic names.
Alastair interspersed his birds and flowers with animals and informed us that Arctic Reindeer have shorter legs than usual reindeer to help them cope with moving around - I had no idea that reindeer fur is hollow and this obviously provides good insulation to the animal. Very clever.
And of course they saw polar bears which against the snow are creamy coloured. And very big. The polar bears are often found waiting by seal holes watching for the breath of the seal for then to pounce. Other animals included Blue whales and at one point a pod of Beluga Whales. Walruses featured a lot as well, and alerted us to the concerns that many animals and birds are sea ice dependent.
A lot of the trip involved travelling on Zodiacs (in which Alastair changed lenses!!!) to get close up to glaciers - as close as is safe that is and resulted in some beautiful images of ice shapes. On one of these trips they went to the largest ice cap in the world which is a 115 miles long of ice cliff and also visited the sea ice edge which has now reduced so much that multi layered ice exists in very few places. Alastair showed us images of glacier melt when the freshwater from the glacier meets the salty sea water - lovely abstracty images.
All adventures have a heart stopping moment and Alastair's was when his small group returned to the beach to climb into their Zodiac and the guide noticed some fresh polar bear paw prints which hadn't been there on arrival! Scary!
Thank you Alastair for showing us some fabulous photos we haven’t seen from you before - it was a treat for botanists and geologists alike as well as ice junkies like myself. The presentation used information, images and videos - ending with a heart tugging plea for us to increase our awareness of climate change as a matter of urgency. Wonderful evening.
Alastair Chalmers - Here Today - Gone Tomorrow
Alastair is such an excellent presenter isn’t he? Last week he gave us an interesting and educational presentation accompanied by some truly superb images. The title of his talk was “Here today…Gone tomorrow” and everything was on point with the title. He presented the story as a Travelogue which gave us a feeling of the journey he and Helen had undertaken to Svalbard.
He started in Oslo and then flew to Longyearbyen - showing us Polar Bear warnings and an International Centre for seed collection which has about 5,000 seeds stored (seemed a bit low to me). The start of their trip was in some very mucky weather which did improve but also worsened again - such is the story of Arctic weather. Bad weather can give fruit to interesting images and Alastair showed us a Polar bear in misty snow - he was a bit disparaging about the image but I loved it.
The birds he showed us were numerous and included Northern Fulmar birds (a lovely image of one taking off), Brunnichs Guillemots, Gulls and Puffins and Kittiwakes, Skuas, Barnacle Geese (one of which was in the mouth of an Arctic Fox!) Arctic Terns, Red Throated Diver and a gorgeous sequence of flying Eiders. There was also a lovely image of a nest of eggs of the Purple Sandpiper. There were other birds as well but I think these mentioned are the main ones.
As well as birds there are lichens and flowers up there in the Arctic and a few to mention are Willow Bistro, Svalbard Poppy and the White Arctic Bell Heather. Very poetic names.
Alastair interspersed his birds and flowers with animals and informed us that Arctic Reindeer have shorter legs than usual reindeer to help them cope with moving around - I had no idea that reindeer fur is hollow and this obviously provides good insulation to the animal. Very clever.
And of course they saw polar bears which against the snow are creamy coloured. And very big. The polar bears are often found waiting by seal holes watching for the breath of the seal for then to pounce. Other animals included Blue whales and at one point a pod of Beluga Whales. Walruses featured a lot as well, and alerted us to the concerns that many animals and birds are sea ice dependent.
A lot of the trip involved travelling on Zodiacs (in which Alastair changed lenses!!!) to get close up to glaciers - as close as is safe that is and resulted in some beautiful images of ice shapes. On one of these trips they went to the largest ice cap in the world which is a 115 miles long of ice cliff and also visited the sea ice edge which has now reduced so much that multi layered ice exists in very few places. Alastair showed us images of glacier melt when the freshwater from the glacier meets the salty sea water - lovely abstracty images.
All adventures have a heart stopping moment and Alastair's was when his small group returned to the beach to climb into their Zodiac and the guide noticed some fresh polar bear paw prints which hadn't been there on arrival! Scary!
Thank you Alastair for showing us some fabulous photos we haven’t seen from you before - it was a treat for botanists and geologists alike as well as ice junkies like myself. The presentation used information, images and videos - ending with a heart tugging plea for us to increase our awareness of climate change as a matter of urgency. Wonderful evening.