Norway Birding Tours

Scenically spectacular Norway, with its famous fjords, rugged coastline, and thousands of islands, has some vast wilderness areas. Denizens of these vast tracts of boreal forest, tundra, and coastline include ptarmigans, sea ducks, sea eagles, northern owls, Ivory Gull, Polar Bears, Walruses, Narwhales, Orcas, and various huge baleen whales, along with a great many others.

While the whole of Norway is well worth a visit if you enjoy nature, probably the most world-renowned part of Norway is incredible Svalbard (also commonly known as Spitsbergen, which means “pointed mountains”, the Dutch name that a lot of people still use even though the area is no longer Dutch territory). This is where many people go to find and photograph polar bears, but it’s also teaming with a large number of other charismatic species, including some sought-after birds. Svalbard is midway between continental Norway and the North Pole and gives easy access to the Arctic Circle, with international flights available to the world’s northernmost city, Longyearbyen.

We arrange spring and early summer cruises to Svalbard, and we also include Norway as part of our Finland-focused birding tour. By request, it is also very easy for us to arrange cruises and land-based tours to see the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) in the Tromsø area. It’s probably the warmest place in the world to observe the Northern Lights, because it’s degrees warmer than expected for its latitude because of the warm Gulf Stream.