A Guide to Coastal Wildlife

This extensively updated fifth edition of Bradt’s The Arctic is an engagingly written and beautifully illustrated full-colour guidebook to some of the world’s most exciting wildlife. Designed with expedition-cruise passengers in mind, it is an ideal companion both on board and ashore, providing fascinating accounts of the most likely animals and plants to be seen – from polar bears and beluga whales to snowy owls and snow buttercups.

Only a small number of hardy and evocative creatures – including narwhals, walruses and Ross’s gulls – call the Arctic their year-round home. But come summer, the region explodes with life as plankton and plants flourish to support a massive population of fish, seabirds and whales, all taking advantage of seasonal abundance before retreating south to avoid the ice. For these few short months of almost endless daylight, the coastal Arctic – from Greenland to Svalbard, Alaska to the Bering Sea – offers a parade of wildlife delights.

On a typical Arctic expedition cruise, you might marvel at walruses lounging on rocks or scan for harp seals bobbing in icy water. Watch Arctic foxes sniffing out goose eggs and gawp at the torrent of dovekies flooding to cliffside breeding colonies. Keep your eyes peeled for polar bears and ivory gulls on ice floes, for the bushy blow that heralds a humpback whale or for a flash of white that signifies a beluga whale.

Packed with fascinating natural histories that bring to life star species, and freshly updated throughout, The Arctic is a timely celebration of polar nature in an era when climate change is profoundly affecting extreme northern latitudes.

Written by Tony Soper (who died in 2024), former expert expedition leader and founder of the BBC Natural History Unit, illustrated with full-colour watercolour paintings from award-winning wildlife artist Dan Powell, and updated by naturalist and award-winning travel writer James Lowen, this fifth edition is packed with fascinating insights into the natural history of Arctic wildlife, its narrative bringing to life the creatures that visitors are likely to encounter.

An eminently portable guidebook, Bradt’s The Arctic is the ideal companion for anyone exploring the far north.