A flock of little auks wing their way over the frozen ground of the Svalbard archipelago. These wonderful little birds, dressed in tuxedo colors, are the only Atlantic auks of their size,about half the size of the Atlantic puffin. Little auks forage for food like other auks by swimming underwater. They mainly eat crustaceans, especially copepods.
The steep cliff rising from the snow in the background is where these little auks will make their home. They breed in large colonies on marine cliffsides, nesting in crevices or beneath large rocks. Typically they will lay just a single egg.
Svalbard is a birder’s paradise, and the little auk is just one of many species that lives here. I shot this image to demonstrate the beauty of a flock versus just a single bird. The lens and teleconverter combination gave me the equivalent of 840mm (shot handheld).