Iceland 3rd - 17th June '11 - Gary Howard's birds and wildlife

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Iceland 3rd - 17th June '11

Posted on July 4, 2012 at 7:00 PM

Our holiday to Iceland was a great success. The weather was so much better than we'd hoped for with barely an hour's rainfall in a fortnight and most days sunny and bright. We drove 2,500 kms and saw a good deal of the island, did wonderfully well with the birds and even saw Arctic Fox and Blue Whales! The scenery was stunning and the lava flows, bubbling pools, geysers and waterfalls amazing.

Sunday 3rd June

After an early morning flight from Luton we landed at the tiny and hastle-free airport at Keflavik and after a trip to duty free with what looked like every other passenger on the flight we wandered out and were met by a rep for the hire-car company. We were quickly aquainted with our Suzuki Grand Vitara 4x4 and speeding in bright sunshine and blue skies towards Reykjavik. Once we'd bought some food to last a couple of days we headed slowly north to our first accomodation in Grundarfjordur taking about 7 hours as we stopped frequently to look at views and birds. Our route took us around Hvalfjordur, through Bogarnes and up into Vesturland on increasingly minor roads. Once we'd booked into our hostel we had dinner and then wandered around the port not sure when to head back as it was still so light! We were soon to discover that sunset was after midnight and sunrise just a few hours later with just a short period of twilight rather than real darkness.

Hvalfjordur

Whimbrel

Arctic Skua

Grundarfjordur.

Monday 4th June

On another bright sunny dry day we explored Vesturland right out to the end of the peninsula at Ondverdarnes. The scenery was stunning with the glacier - Snaefellsjokull- shimmering in the sunshine. It was a very productive day for birds with several of our target species seen very well. I went from never having seen a drake Harlequin Duck to seeing a flock of c30 and many scattered pairs. We had Red-necked Phalarope at very close quarters and found a good few Brunnich's Guillemot's - a lifer for me- at Svortuloft. As expected given the habitat the species count was low but the numbers and views were impressive and more than entertained the kids when they weren't running free or hiding in dunes / lava fields / crevasses! Virtual 24 hour daylight is already causing a problem - I don't want to go to bed and stayed up for sunset pictures despite a long day in the field.

Kirkjufell, Grundarfjordur

Arctic Tern

Snaefellsjokull glacier

Harlequin Ducks

Arctic Tern

Oystercatcher

Fulmar

Red-necked Phalarope

Svortuloft cliffs

Kittiwake

Brunnich's Guillemot

Guillemot

Razorbill

Brunnich's Guillemot

Eider

Raven

sunset (around 00.30) over Kirkjufell

Tuesday 5th June

It was dull, grey and cool with a fairly strong NE wind blowing when we finally left the hostel and again headed west along the peninsula. Harlequin's were in the bay beneath the Kirkjufell and we had several more before we turned off the coast road and journeyed south on gravel to Budir on the south side of the peninsula. We spent the day exploring the coastine west all the way to Hellissandur where we'd reached the previous day. Despite the blustery conditions we enjoyed rambling along the coastline and driving to see the many volcanic features that are a feature of the area. The weather improved as the day passed with much more sunshine in the afternoon.