Arctic hare invasion

This year Zackenberg saw an invasion of arctic hares. I noticed this in early October where I counted 64 individuals in three different groups just south of the research station.

Photo facts: Nikon D4, 200-400/4 at f/5.6, 280mm, 1/500s, ISO 160, cropped a bit

Hare trapping

An artic hare caught by the TrapCam set up in the river bed. I could have wished the hare to be more centered. My intention with this set up was to catch the fox as I had noticed fox tracks even before the snow fell. I did not have much luck with this however. Besides hare I caught a musk ox in the same trap.

Photo facts: Nikon D700, 17-35/2.8 at 19mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 200, Trailmaster 550 IR trigger, home made Pelican housing.

Jumping arctic hare

A shot from this season at Zackenberg taken from a high vantage point. The arctic hares seems to be only close to the station buildings early and late in the season.

Huge hare herd...

Some days ago I went to the other side of the river with Julie. We rowed in a little rubber dinghy at high tide. I was to collect water samples from a few lakes and she was to check some automatic monitoring cameras on the mountain. The weather was nice and the landscape is very different on the other side, with a steep boulder slope and moraine hills and many small lakes bellow. After we had each done our business we met for a late dinner in the cosy old trapping station. At one stage I needed to go out and get something from my bag outside and I surprised an old musk ox bull lying only some 20m from the house. It rose on stiff legs and gave a snorting sound for warning before it slowly walked off to meet it two companions, leaving a bit of shedded wool in the vegetation. I got a few photos of it before it went. After dinner we went to check on the local fox den. I was sure there was young but had not seen them yet. We found them up and playing and counted 6. That is a pretty normal litter size but I have read that they can get up to 22 and extreme good lemming years. We sat and watched them from the distance and they did not seem to notice us as they were play fighting and chasing each other. Returning to the trapping station we saw 9 arctic hares in a group. As we closed in on them hoping to get a closer look, they were joined by 2 more. Most of them were immatures and still a bit greyish, probably from last year. They were also playing and jumping around running in circles. It was real cool to watch and we were lucky to get some photos too. High on the experience we went back to the house and packed for the late night trip back over the sound. About 2 o'clock in the morning we were ready for bed.