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!