King of the Arctic, The Polar Bear

Nikon D500, 500mm PF @ f5.6 1/1250th sec, 400 iso

For as long as I knew you could go and visit the arctic and see Polar Bears in the wild it became the top of my bucket list.  That dream came true in the summer of 2019 when I headed off on an expedition for 2 weeks on n ice strengthened vessel cruising around Svalbard.  My primary goal; to see and photograph Polar Bears.

We saw 4 bears in total; which considering the extreme weather conditions we had was very lucky indeed and nothing is guaranteed when it comes to wildlife sightings.  I didn’t come away from the trip having had my up close and personal view of bears in the ice that I had hoped for but this particular bear we watched walking along the shoreline before settling himself down for a sleep on the tundra.  A truly amazing experience.