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Adit Merkine | profile | all galleries >> Nature Photography on the Globe >> Svalbard in winter 2017 >> Polar bears tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Polar bears

It was rare to see wildlife along the coasts of Svalbard's fjords. Luckily, in one of the fjords we encountered a couple of polar bears.

The female looked so little relative to the male, such that at the beginning, we thought it's a sow bear and a cub. Only when the boat came closer, the expedition leaders identified that actually it's a couple in courtship, which is considered as rare to encounter.

So, this is what I succeeded to shot, with a focal length of up to 600mm, under very extreme weather conditions throughout the expedition (from -27c deg to -32c deg) + wind chill.
Courtship
Courtship
The male
The male
The female
The female