A Country of Wildlife

Iceland is a distracting place, what with all the scenery and spectacle it was almost too easy to forget I was there for the wildlife. However, the wildlife itself was so distracting that I couldn’t help but admire that as well. (Don’t worry, I did do a lot of actual work as well, we will get to that eventually!).

As soon as I arrived in Iceland there were new species for me to see. Arctic skua were a regular site from the car, flying over fields and along the coast looking for food. Unfortunately the nature of these sightings, whilst great in person, made photographing them very difficult, but I did catch up with one at a distance.

Arctic skua on the ice at the glacial lagoon.

Travelling across the country and stopping at promising looking sites is a great way to take in as much as possible and by doing this we saw quite a lot!

Iceland gull - despite the name not a resident of Iceland and actually not commonly seen there.

Iceland has very few passerines, as such redwing are very numerous and can be seen in most places.

Juvenile redwing.

Whilst Iceland may be lacking in passerines – I only saw 8 species in total! – this didn’t make the views any less exciting. Besides the sheer volume of redwing it was great to see a couple of the other species so well.

Redpoll singing in the trees.

Snow bunting in full summer plumage.

Quite the stunning little bird!

Quite a lot of the species seen in Iceland can be seen in the UK, but normally they are seen in more remote locations, at certain times of the year or in smaller numbers at home. In Iceland however, whilst some were still harder to see, they were often visible in ways that would be extremely hard to come by in the UK.

Eiders were everywhere around Iceland.

Eider eggs hatching.

Wigeon and chicks.

Merlin having just caught a white wagtail.

Ptarmigan.

Iceland is particularly rich in waterfowl and one location in particular was an exceptional site for them, Myvatn. For anyone interested in birds this is a must visit location as the number of species and individuals present is amazing.

Scaup, tufted duck, gadwall and many other species were present at Myvatn.

Scaup and chicks.

Female long-tailed duck.

Whooper swans.

Slavonian grebe.

One of the highlights for me was seeing divers. I have only ever seen a diver in the UK once, a red-throated diver off the coast of Flamborough in 2012, and although they are possible to see around Scotland in particular I have never had the opportunity. So to see them in such numbers and actively breeding whilst in Iceland was quite special.

Red-throated divers and chick.

Red-throated weren’t the only divers about though. Great northern diver also breed in Iceland and I was thrilled to see these a few times as well.

First glimpse of a great northern diver out in a bay.

Great northern diver with chick at Myvatn.

There are two species bird watchers from Europe are particularly interested in when visiting the wetland habitats of Iceland. Both are species of duck that originate in North America and so are extremely rare anywhere in Europe except in Iceland: Barrow’s goldeneye and harlequin duck.

Female Barrow's goldeneye, a species that breeds at Myvatn.

Male harlequin ducks seen just offshore on Papey Island on the East coast.

That isn’t to say that birds are the only wildlife to see, far from it. Seals are a regular sighting and if in the right place at the right time there is a possibility of an Arctic fox (unfortunately I wasn’t in the right place at the right time for these); but the most astounding sights are attributable to the cetaceans.

From Iceland a number of species can be seen, including blue whale and orca, and during my time I saw white-beaked dolphins and humpback whales. The humpback whales really did put on a show as well! Around the Northeast headland of Langanes we were fortunate enough to not only see whales daily, but to see them close inshore, see them feeding and even see them jumping out of the water! We were working with the guillemots at the time, but whilst camping in the evening we even shared our dinner with them (the timing, not the food thankfully).

Humpback whale.

Two individuals were regularly feeding at the surface.

Seeing such behaviour so close was brilliant!

Despite all the wildlife briefly mentioned in this blog there were two groups that excelled the waterfowl, passerines and even the whales for spectacle – the seabirds (obviously!) and the waders!

Powerful Planet

As much as I was wowed by the scenery in Iceland, nothing was quite like seeing the Earth in action! Iceland is famous for being a real land of ice and fire (so much so that some of Game of Thrones was filmed there) and these elements are in evidence across the country.

(Before I continue I’ll say this, I don’t know much about geology, so I won’t be expressing any detail as to how these things work, but there are plenty of information signs around if you visit these sites yourselves.)

Iceland is covered in water, above and below the surface, and in some places this water meets with geological processes that warm it up, sometimes to the point of boiling, and push it out with great force. One such place in Geysir.

Geysir: regularly exploding out of the ground, a geysir in action is awesome to see!

In other locations the ground spews out material of a different kind. A thick mud like substance is pushed out in the geothermal areas producing not just some interesting sights but some interesting smells as well.

Gases pour out of the ground around the mud-pits giving off a very sulphurous smell.

The ground bubbles away.

As the mud spits out it creates small craters around the edge of each pool.

The geothermal areas that create the mud-pits are home to some of the most alien looking landscapes imaginable. The whole area is a mixture of browns, reds and yellows with steam rising from the ground that it feel more like a scene from a movie on Mars!

The colouration of the landscape is quite extraordinary.

Even where water exists in these areas it takes on a more vibrant colour.

Areas that have, in the grand scheme of Earth’s history at least, gone through a tumultuous event recently are still showing signs of that activity today. Whole areas of lava and ash rock are still leaking steam out from below the surface and the ground is warm, sometimes hot, to the touch from this activity.

A crater surrounded by the lava fields it created.

Inside the crater steam is still escaping.

The surrounding area still gives a sense of what came before with the black rock, steam and warm surface.

All of these sights were incredible, I haven’t been anywhere like it before, but where Iceland excelled even more was in its waterfalls. There are countless waterfalls of various sizes around Iceland, so many in fact that ones that would be quite the spectacle in the UK are bypassed as just ordinary there. However, I did see five waterfalls in particular that are too incredible not to draw the attention.

Seljalandsfoss: a notable waterfall due to the fact that you can walk behind it.

Seljalandsfoss: worth packing the waterproofs for!

Skogafoss: one of the tallest waterfalls on offer and one that can be approached very closely from the bottom.

Godafoss: the waterfall of the Gods, and quite the spectacle with its multiple points of cascade.

Gullfoss: the most accessible waterfall from the capital Reykjavik and one of the most interesting, a stepped waterfall with the two main parts being at almost 90° to each other.

The cascades leading to the top of Gullfoss are impressive in themselves.

But one waterfall stood out as being the most impressive. Film fans may recognise it from the opening scene of Prometheus, Dettifoss is incredible to see! The raw power of such a vast quantity of water cascading at such speed has to be seen to be believed.

Dettifoss: the scale of this waterfall can be seen by the people on the rocks.

Dettifoss: The water creates so much spray when it falls that it covers the area in a mist.

Dettifoss: when the mist clears with the wind then you get to see through to the waterfall in all its awesome power.

Photos, and even video, don't do scenes like this justice. If I were to recommend one (non-wildlife) site to visit in Iceland it would be Dettifoss, but all of these areas were fantastic to see and well worth the time.

A Stunning Country

I have been extremely fortunate to be asked to work in some amazing locations around the world. These are places I thought I’d never see, let alone get to work in for a prolonged period of time. So when I was invited to join BAS again I was thrilled, especially as this time they were sending me north – to Iceland!

I was stationed in Iceland for one month in the summer of 2019 to study two species of guillemots, more on this in a later blog, but the travelling required between study sites meant that I was able to see a lot of the country along the way; and what a country it is!

Driving around Iceland is near impossible without getting distracted by the scenery

Unfortunately no photo can do justice to the stunning scenery on offer (when I’m pointing the camera at least!) but nevertheless the views were stunning. On my first night we camped next to a glacial lagoon, just to get the feeling of polar work in early.

Arriving at the campsite on the first night in Iceland to this view - incredible!

Waking up to it isn't bad either!

The wildlife enjoys the area as well.

Iceland is a large country with a small population – just 300,000 residents compared with 3,000,000 tourists each year! – so towns and even farm houses are often spread quite far apart. Driving between them to get from one study site to another entailed lots of great views.

The views are hard to pass without taking a few photos.

Sometimes the route cuts through the landscape in very windy ways, making the view impressive and the driving interesting.

Besides the “standard” roadside hill and mountain views Iceland is rich in different landscapes. A land created by volcanoes and glaciers can’t be anything but spectacular and I was unable to draw myself away from the spectacle for a moment.

Ancient craters now grown over with vegetation.

Glacial valleys carved out so long ago are now home to woodlands and lakes.

Sandy beaches are always pleasant and black sand makes quite a change.

Whilst Iceland is very much still active in terms of planetary processes, more on that in the next blog, areas that have been active in the past but are now dormant provide some of the most interesting landscapes I have ever seen.

The lakes of Myvatn are in an area surrounded by craters.

The crater of Hverfjall towers over the Myvatn area and takes around 2 hours to walk around.

The ancient lava field of Dimmuborgum is now covered in vegetation with volcanic rock protruding out.

The fissure that is created by the slow pulling apart of the North American and European tectonic plates has created ridgelines of rock steeped in local history.

What Iceland also has in abundance is little hidden gems, areas that would be of great interest in most places but are often overlooked for the grander scenes.

The coastline at Langanes is ideal for seabirds but compared to others around Iceland isn't as well visited.

As an island Iceland is subject to tides dumping debris from the oceans quite a lot, but I was not expecting so much driftwood in a single bay!

Underground pools full of warm, or sometimes very hot, water can be found and used to be used for bathing by locals.

Picturesque streams and rivers are everywhere, linking waterfalls and lakes to the ocean.

Iceland would be worth a visit for the scenery alone, but that is just the beginning. The country is full of active Earth processes, plus an incredible amount of wildlife for a – geologically and biologically speaking – new island so that it is one of the most interesting places to see.