Visit Vesterålen: Your Wildlife Guide to Northern Nordland

Northern Nordland is a place of sprawling landscapes, amazing wildlife, and some truly incredible fjords. Now, you’re probably thinking I’m going to branch out and go on a rant about the Vikings, or maybe boats, or something else of that ilk and surprise you. You’d be wrong there. You know me (or maybe not, in which case, welcome to my blog), I’m going to talk about birds again. Surprise (not really)! I’m going to talk about the other wildlife of Vesterålen, too. As such, I’m going to take you on a grand tour of this region’s wildlife, both on and off the tours I took. I’ll also share a particularly fun unguided excursion you can take from Vesterålen, if you have the time. We went on three tours while we were in Vesterålen, and I assure you, I loved each and every one. I won’t spoil them for now, though… Anyway, let’s get out there and start exploring the wildlife of Northern Nordland.

The great thing about wildlife tours in this region during the summer is that wildlife tends to be the most active when humans aren’t (in the middle of the night, for instance). So, you have two options to combat this: go during the day with lower chances or go at night when you would usually struggle to see anything. Well, being above the arctic circle changes the equation; as you may recall, during the summer, night doesn’t exactly, well, happen. It kind of does, and the animals are still more active at night, but instead of setting, the sun kind of just spins around the sky without ever dropping down below the horizon. During our tours, the sun dropped behind a mountain a few times, and that was about as dark as it got. Because of this, both photographers and nature lovers have a much better shot at seeing wildlife here at midnight (or, indeed, seeing anything) than in many other places.

Now, that’s enough of your climatology lesson for today, let’s head out to look for some wildlife. The first part of our tour mostly consisted of heading along a series of roads that wound around the side of some small fjords. I saw multiple interesting types of waterbirds here, including some small oystercatchers, with striking black plumage, small white spots below their wings, and a little orange beak that looked oddly like a carrot. I stopped at multiple points to take photos of them as they ran all over people’s lawns, eating bugs, poking holes in the ground (I doubt they need to aerate their lawns out here. The birds seem to do it for them) and just otherwise being super entertaining. I even got to see some babies later in the tour, which kept the birds’ cheerful demeanor, but condensed it down into a little ball of fluff that just warmed my heart when I saw it. We kept moving, and as we were coming up on a bridge that marked the halfway point of our tour, I got to check another bird off my bucket list. Greylag Geese. These birds, while part of the goose family (it gets a bad rap for a reason. Canada Geese are vicious, spiteful creatures), are gentle giants. They have gray backs, a clean white underside, and a large orange bill. They’re almost the size of swans, and have a similar elegance to them, too. I was excited to see them already, but as I waited by the shore, a line of goslings waddled happily out of the tall grass and joined their parents as they drifted calmly out into the pond. It was great to watch, and I stayed there for a while. After this, only four other birds remained on my bucket list for this trip, ptarmigans (hard to spell, but it’s worth looking up, they’re really cute), Arctic Terns (I’ll touch on them later), puffins, and the target of our other tour (which is staying undisclosed to build suspense). Now that I was done enjoying the local goose population, I swapped a letter, crossed a bridge to the other bank of the fjord I was on, and moved on to g moose instead.

Despite their relatively enormous (or enorMOOSE if you’re a fellow dad joke enthusiast) size, they can be surprisingly sneaky, and we had to search for a while before we encountered one. It also probably didn’t help that one of the following things is true: either the moose in Jackson Hole were unusually large, or the moose here were unusually small, because I was looking for the wrong size of moose, which does tend to be an issue. They were still plenty large, though, and I did spot my first one in a small clearing. If you haven’t seen a moose before, I highly recommend you try to find one here; they are quite wonderful creatures, and there’s something very majestic about them. They just have such a regal bearing and are honestly wonderful photo subjects. After the first moose, we had to travel for only a short distance before we spotted another two, poking their heads up from behind a small hill.  I spent some more time here, watching them graze calmly only a short distance away, before we moved on.

This wasn’t the end of the tour, though, and we had a few more animals to look forward to. While the moose were smaller than I expected, there was one animal that seems to have picked up the slack. The rabbits of Norway are positively enormous. Just a little bit after the moose, I spotted one running across the road and hopped out (see what I did there?) to photograph it. Even the seemingly average-sized ones here are bigger than the largest jackrabbits back home and have curiously long legs (which serve as snowshoes in the winter, but just look strange with no snow). They were quite entertaining, but I still have animals to share. I can’t be splitting hairs “hares” about the size of rabbits anymore.

As I drove, around 2:00 A.M., the sun dipped down below the mountains, bathing the area around me in thick, honey-toned twilight for only a couple of minutes before arcing back up and daylight resumed. That little moment, only about five minutes in length, was really something incredible to witness both coming and going, and it made me realize again just how beautiful the Norwegian countryside is. I’d say I saw it in a new light, but that’s a painfully bad pun, even for me, and it cheapens the moment, so just ignore that. If you know me, you know it’s nearly impossible to render me speechless (I probably talk way too much, honestly), but this moment left me at a loss for words.

I thought I was done when we came into a residential neighborhood, but the tour still had one surprise in store for us. Willow Ptarmigans, a species I’d had on my bucket list for quite a while now. They look sort of like little rock potatoes, and I absolutely love them. They change from a stick-like brown color to a pure white coat of feathers as the seasons change, sort of like arctic foxes, and have these adorable little red eyebrows no matter the season, which accentuate their little faces perfectly. Also, did I mention? They don’t just walk; they strut around like they own whatever patch of grass they’re in. It’s really entertaining. When I spotted them by the side of the road, I climbed out excitedly, eager to get a good look at them. There were two of them: a male and a female, judging by the different eyebrow shapes, and they strutted along the shoulder of the road. As they went, they made a sound somewhere between a chicken clucking and one of those wooden frog instruments where you rub a stick along the spines to make noise. I loved them immediately. I spent a long time, just sitting there in the grass watching them waddle around, but eventually they waddled away into the undergrowth, and I left.

Our next tour took us up the coast to the most northern location we visited. The winding road followed close to the edge of the Norwegian Sea, winding past (and occasionally passing through) a series of striking cliffsides. However, as I continued, despite reaching farther and farther from anything that could be described as tropical in the traditional sense, the cliffs thinned out, I noticed some beaches that looked, well, out of place. I was expecting the beaches to look very different here. I was expecting thin inlets covered in round, gray stones, with dark, deep blue water. I was not expecting something that looked like it was on loan from Hawaii or the Caribbean. The beaches looked remarkably inviting, with white sand and clear, turquoise water set into halfmoon-shaped bays and inlets along the coast. The only thing hinting at the actual water temperature was the lack of palm trees and people in the water. Oh, yeah, and the cows. For some reason, the cows of nearby villages seemed to be having a beach vacation. They were plopped down in the sand or sitting on the rocks like strangely proportioned seals. It was exactly where you wouldn’t expect to see a cow, but the entire beach defied expectations in every meaningful way, so it almost circled around to being normal again.

Once we were in Bleik, I boarded the boat and headed out to the island of Bleiksøya. I was expecting the reserve to have a fair number of puffins, but believe me when I tell you, I wasn’t expecting what I saw. As we closed in on the island, I started to notice a slight distortion in the air around it, which, as we approached, seemed to look like a swarm of locusts. I assumed it was what the puffins would eat for a second, but then I remembered that they exclusively eat fish. I had another idea, but I dismissed it as stupidity. There was no way they were all puffins, right? Wrong. As our captain eventually told us, there were eighty thousand breeding pairs of puffins on this little island. Yes, you heard that right. That makes one hundred and sixty thousand puffins here, plus the babies. I love puffins, like, a lot, and seeing them swarming around the boat and the island was a truly insane sight, with their little orange beaks zipping around us as they went fishing. There were also a couple of very interesting other species out there, mixed into the puffin swarm, including one I’d wanted to see for a long time. Common Eiders. I’d loved eiders ever since I saw their entries in a “Birds of Europe” guidebook when I was nine, and I finally got the chance. I spotted them through the cloud of puffins (they were genuinely obscuring my vision), in a small cove on the island, and I asked the captain to try to get the boat closer. I leaned over the rail expectantly, my camera lined up, and the birds eventually came into view from behind the rocks. I noticed the female first, and started to think I had mistaken the bottom of a puffin for the male, but he eventually swam out from behind a rock, too. I was insanely excited, and I started shooting pictures almost immediately. Eiders are an interesting duck for a number of reasons. First, they’re a strange mix of elegance and awkwardness, with the male having striking white feathers, a black cap on his head, and a small, green, leaf-like mark on the back of their neck. Both the eiders also had slightly wrong proportions on their heads, though. Their eyes were set at a different spot than most duck species, looking almost like a children’s drawing that got the eyes slightly wrong. It was really exciting for me to see them, and I was happy to see another bird I’d been hoping to see.

Now, there’s only one tour left, but you’re in luck, I saved the best for last. Or, at the very least, I definitely saved the largest for last. It’s time to go looking for some White-Tailed Sea-Eagles. Our driver pulled the boat to a halt and tossed a giant fish into the water (I was a bit on the fence about throwing bait for the birds, but my guide was careful to make sure the birds weren’t getting dependent on human-provided food). The gulls and kittiwakes showed up almost immediately, and started squabbling over the fish, spinning through the air and the water and biting each other in an attempt to get a late-night snack, screeching angrily as they tried to get the fish and swallow it whole before someone else swiped it. Then, without warning, the gulls fell silent, left the fish where it sat, and flew off low in all directions, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it anymore. They were right; only a few moments after the last seagull took off, I noticed a huge bird farther up, steadily growing closer. Most of the birds of prey I see are small hawks or falcons, topping out at around the size of an osprey, which, while large, is still pretty tiny compared to a White-Tailed Sea Eagle. The bird performed a few more small, drifting circles, apparently lining up, then abruptly dropped its flight path lower and slammed into the fish before lifting off the water, carrying the giant fish like it weighed next to nothing. I was, as you can assume, quite impressed by this bird. Their wingspans were nearly the width of the small boat we took out there. Their heads and bodies are brown, but their heads get a little lighter as they age, looking more similar to Bald Eagles as they grow older, and featured two large, piercing yellow eyes, and similarly enormous beaks. Their tail, for which they are named, is, as you could probably guess, white, but I doubt you’d guess just how large the birds really are until you see them. It’s not every day you get to see an eagle with a wingspan that, on the low end, is still longer than I am tall, and can reach up to eight feet in length. If you get a look at one of these beautiful birds up close (this one flew in not twenty feet away from me), you start to think that the myth of the Roc isn’t quite as much of a stretch as you expected. There’s more to them than just being enormous, though; they can spot food from truly ridiculous distances, and you’ll know if you ever tried to grab a swimming fish out of the water that the angles never really line up, but these birds are adapted for doing just that from the air. How do they do it? I’m not a physiologist, so you won’t get a definitive answer from me, but I know it has something to do with an eye adaptation that reduces the amount that water bends light, allowing the bird to spot a fish from a mile or more away. This adaptation is shared with ospreys and a few other fishing birds. In addition, the bird has a third eyelid that closes just before they hit the water, preventing the spray from the impact from interfering with their final approach. They’re also quite clever birds, lining up their catch into the wind as they fly to minimize drag. If you’ve ever seen a fish, you’ll probably notice that they tend to be quite aerodynamic in one direction, and one direction only: headfirst, which these birds have figured out and use to their advantage daily.

After a bit more cruising around, I went to my favorite spot on the tour. Hellfjord, which, while a bit ominous-sounding, was remarkably beautiful. We entered the thin slit leading to the fjord, and once we’d turned a small corner and flipped the engine off, it was like the world fell silent, and you were surrounded by still, glass-green water, the occasional distant call of a gull or tern, and otherwise, pretty much nothing. I sat there for a while, just relaxing as I watched the birds wheel along the mountains the boat was parked in between, and enjoyed the moment as the sun dipped behind one of those mountains, filling the ravine with beautiful light, diffused from passing through the jagged peaks above me. It was incredible. It’s hard to find a place that peaceful anywhere, and I savored every moment in there. Eventually, it was time to go, but I missed it almost immediately.

I have one more place to share with you, and a bird that I really enjoyed. We visited the small village of Nyksund, a tiny fishing town set into the rocks of the coastline. Part of it looks like a ghost town, and that’s because, at one point, it was. The village was abandoned when the government diverted resources from small fishing villages to large commercial ports, but was revitalized as part of a university project, and people moved back in. While walking to dinner, one particular bird caught my eye. Another must-see bird for me, an Arctic Tern. Well, I thought it was an Arctic Tern, at least. It was actually the very similar Common Tern. Now, I’m left with a memory card full of Common Tern photos and a vague sense of betrayal, by all accounts, a sad turn “Tern” of events. Still, regardless of species, terns are remarkable birds, mostly on account of their migration habits. You’re probably aware that most birds migrate, and some, like geese tend to migrate quite a long way. But even the most well-traveled goose has nothing on these birds. No, these birds decided that, apparently, their migration path should take them anywhere from 9,500 miles to 21,700 miles round trip, which is a longer distance than the average round-trip flight between the United States and Europe. And, terns don’t look the part of long-distance fliers, either. They’re tiny birds, with thin proportions, elegant white feathers, and sharp, forked tails. They look like they belong in a Japanese painting. But despite that, every year, these birds fly truly insane distances, mostly over the open ocean, often eating and sleeping in the air, and touching down next to never. As you can probably tell, I love them, so I was ecstatic to see one in person, and even more so that this particular one seemed interested in showing off (I was even more excited when I though it was an Arctic Tern, but oh well. I did get to see Arctic Terns on this trip, but not this well). Once I started trying to photograph it, though, it decided to taunt me, flying graceful loops over the town as I sprinted back and forth across the pier, trying to keep up. Eventually, the bird landed on a rusty anchor, and I was insanely happy. I had the bird in a good spot, and it wasn’t trying to mess with me anymore. I got some great photos, but it flew off again soon after, rocketing down the channel in the middle of the village. Before I go, I have to mention the wonderful meal I had at Nyksund Expedisjonen. It was, far and away, the best meal I had on this trip, and they had a salt cod pasta when I was there that, while it sounds weird, was wonderful.

While it isn’t a popular destination you’ll hear about often, Vesterålen is a great choice for all things wildlife and nature in Nordland. So, if you’re planning a trip to Norway, consider that Vesterålen may need to be on your “must visit” list.