Hi - we are travelling on the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Kirkenes( with couple days stay at kirkenes) mid Feb in the hope of seeing the Northern lights.
We aren't really expecting to see any wildlife,( apart from huskies and reindeer!).....
But has anyone done this trip at this time of year - is there anything we should look out for?
Thank you!
Does anyone know where to see polar bears in scandinavia?
There are no polar bears in Scandinavia proper. There are polar bears in Svalbard and Greenland, which are Scandinavian possessions or dependencies.
Your best chance of seeing them is to go on a multi-day cruise around Svalbard in summer. Because polar bears will hunt men to eat them, no one goes deliberately to look for polar bears on land, that is why your best chance is on the aforementioned cruises.
#1: it's not elk, it's moose in Scandinavia (different animal!), but they are NOT that far north, not along the coast and NOT visible from a ship..... Lynx are extremely shy, and will avoid people, they are more common than most people are aware of, but it's VERY uncommon to see them in the wild. Also not living along the coast.....
Question of seeing polar bears: you can see them in a zoo - if you're into that kind of places.....
Expect to see some bird life from the ship, that's most likely it! If you're going all the way from Bergen to Kirkenes you will want to keep your eyes open outside Bodø, as there's an island with lots of sea eagles, with some luck you'll see some.
it's not elk, it's moose in Scandinavia (different animal!),
Not necessarily.
Alces alces is called elk in UK English, but moose in US English. However in the UK, we do recognise and sometimes borrow the US word, because the USanians have polluted the word elk by applying it to a dfferent animal. Elk is the older name for this animal, taken from the Germanic, moose being from the Algonquian, which has came into (first US) English much more recently than the word elk.
Cervus Canadensis is called elk or wapiti in US English, but only wapiti in the UK. Indeed, we Brits would tend to think that calling them elk is an annoying mistake, that gave the word elk a confusing aspect it did not previously have. Wapiti is a perfectly good name for them, so why can't we stick to that and reserve the name elk for true elk?
There is a general habit throughout the colonies, not just English speaking colonies, of the colonists borrowing European words and applying them to the local flora and fauna, thus confusing the rest of us when they bring that word back.
For example, in England, a robin is a long established name for a small bird in the flycatcher family, but Americans apply the name to a kind of thrush, and Australians apply it to the Petroicidae, a family of entirely different birds. And in Spanish, roble is the normal European Spanish word for an oak tree, but in Chile and Argentina, where there are no oaks, the name is used to refer to Nothofagus obliqua, a member of the beech family. This has resulted in the tree being called, in English, "roble beech".
Though of course borrowing names is an old habit. In UK English, the name laurel has been appropriated from something we actually grow, and now call a bay tree, to refer to a member of the cherry family, which is annoying because there is a "laurel family" of trees, Lauraceae, which laurel is not in. We have also appropriated the name sycamore, orginally a middle eastern fig, to apply to a maple tree. So we can hardly complain when Americans borrow it again to apply it to a plane.