Alkafjellet, SvalbardAlkafjellet is a massive basalt cliff on the eastern coast of Spitsbergen, rising sheer from the Hinlopen Strait. In summer, tens of thousands of Brnnich's guillemots crowd onto every available ledge to breed. The scale is difficult to convey. What looks like speckled rock from a distance resolves into birds, thousands of them, packed tight on fractured shelves of dark columnar basalt. I made this photograph from a zodiac below the cliff face. The