Edward
Umimmak
For a few months a couple of us have had the idea of visiting far eastern Iceland, an area with virtually no birding coverage, to look for Black-throated and White-billed Divers. These birds have not yet been recorded in Iceland, yet many birders here, myself included, simply cannot believe that they do not occur here. So on Thursday I set off with two friends, Simmi and Yann, to see what we could find. We didn't expect to simply go and find two national firsts just like that and the appeal of the trip was to visit a completely underwatched area, and also to see some spring arrivals. We saw plenty of divers, but only Red-throated and Great Northern, the other two remain undetected.
To cut to the chase (or to avoid having to read any more of this) a series of photos of the trip can be viewed here, covering birds, people and the wild landscapes of that area
http://www.hi.is/~yannk/austurferd04.html
You'll even find a picture of me there watching the Steller's Eider! Hint, I'm wearing headgear which shows my footballing allegiance. The fourth picture down is the hardest spot the bird picture you'll ever see. You'll never get it!
The undoubted highlight of the trip was on Friday night when, as we were approaching the small village of Fáskrúðsfjörður (try saying that fast) 400 miles from Reykjavík, we remembered that a local man had reported an odd bird the day before whilst out walking his dog. The description was vague but we phoned him and to our delight he told us he had just seen it again minutes earlier at the same site. His description was of a very large brown bird which stretched its bill into the air as it was approached. That sounded like a ... but surely it couldn't be, not in Iceland. When we got there the bird was located immediately and incredibly it was a Bittern, an extreme rarity here, the third record and the first since 1948! In the total absence of reedbeds it chose a hillside (!) with tussocks of grass and knee-high birch shrub. It was so well camouflaged that the next day when we revisited the site, five pairs of eyes scoured the hillside for it from the car to no avail. Yann then took a photo of the "habitat" but when we got out of the car we flushed the bird only 10 metres away from us on a bare hillside. Sure enough when we looked at the photo we could see the bird but it completely disappeared into the background when we were searching with our bare eyes and bins.
Elated by this find we continued and saw some good birds, a Gyr Falcon with a Redwing in its talons, a Common Eider x King Eider hybrid, an delightful Steller's Eider drake, a Long-eared Owl and plenty of incoming migrants, including a spectacular mass arrival of Redwing. The trip list for the three days goes like this.
Red-throated Diver - locally common on breeding lakes. Displaying birds were very noisy indeed.
Great Northern Diver - 60-70 in total, all at sea. Not back on lakes yet.
Slavonian Grebe - first bird of year back in breeding plumage
Fulmar - abundant
Gannet - several along coast
Cormorant - common
Bittern - absolute mega!!
Grey Heron - five together
Whooper Swan - common, one fjord held 3,000 birds!
Pink-footed Goose - five
White-fronted Goose - first birds of year
Greylag Goose - common
Barnacle Goose - first birds of year
Shelduck - several of Iceland's latest colonist
Wigeon
Teal
Mallard - common
Pintail - several
Tufted Duck
Scaup
Eider - abundant, one raft at Neskaupstaður was estimated to hold 10,000 birds
Eider x King Eider hybrid - one Eskifjörður
Steller's Eider - the ever popular drake is still at Iceland's remotest village
Harlequin Duck - common. One group of 79 birds was largest I've seen
Long-tailed Duck - common
Common Scoter - 3 seen were first birds of the year
Barrow's Goldeneye - one drake was well out of range
Red-breasted Merganser - locally common
Goosander - single duck
Merlin - two
Gyr Falcon - one seen with Redwing in talons
Oystercatcher - many have arrived inthe last week or two
Golden Plover - very elusive, few birds seen briefly. Will be knee-deep in them in a week's time.
Purple Sandpiper
Snipe - two seen were first arrivals
Redshank
Turnstone
Great Skua - very common and conspicuous on restricted breeding grounds
Black-headed Gull
Herring Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Iceland Gull
Glaucous Gull
Kittiwake
Guillemot
Razorbill
Black Guillemot
Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon
Long-eared Owl - very good bird in Iceland
Meadow Pipit - three seen were first arrivals of spring
Wren
Robin - vagrant and not a bird I get annually
Redwing - abundant. Huge arrivals during the week, thousands and thousands!
Chiffchaff - vagrant. I usually have to wait until September for this.
Goldcrest - bird heard clearly in bare scree slope!!! Definite Goldcrest but not seen.
Raven - very common
Starling
Redpoll -2, one of which was very pale indeed
Snow Bunting - surprisingly thin on the ground. Most have headed inland to breed I presume.
E
To cut to the chase (or to avoid having to read any more of this) a series of photos of the trip can be viewed here, covering birds, people and the wild landscapes of that area
http://www.hi.is/~yannk/austurferd04.html
You'll even find a picture of me there watching the Steller's Eider! Hint, I'm wearing headgear which shows my footballing allegiance. The fourth picture down is the hardest spot the bird picture you'll ever see. You'll never get it!
The undoubted highlight of the trip was on Friday night when, as we were approaching the small village of Fáskrúðsfjörður (try saying that fast) 400 miles from Reykjavík, we remembered that a local man had reported an odd bird the day before whilst out walking his dog. The description was vague but we phoned him and to our delight he told us he had just seen it again minutes earlier at the same site. His description was of a very large brown bird which stretched its bill into the air as it was approached. That sounded like a ... but surely it couldn't be, not in Iceland. When we got there the bird was located immediately and incredibly it was a Bittern, an extreme rarity here, the third record and the first since 1948! In the total absence of reedbeds it chose a hillside (!) with tussocks of grass and knee-high birch shrub. It was so well camouflaged that the next day when we revisited the site, five pairs of eyes scoured the hillside for it from the car to no avail. Yann then took a photo of the "habitat" but when we got out of the car we flushed the bird only 10 metres away from us on a bare hillside. Sure enough when we looked at the photo we could see the bird but it completely disappeared into the background when we were searching with our bare eyes and bins.
Elated by this find we continued and saw some good birds, a Gyr Falcon with a Redwing in its talons, a Common Eider x King Eider hybrid, an delightful Steller's Eider drake, a Long-eared Owl and plenty of incoming migrants, including a spectacular mass arrival of Redwing. The trip list for the three days goes like this.
Red-throated Diver - locally common on breeding lakes. Displaying birds were very noisy indeed.
Great Northern Diver - 60-70 in total, all at sea. Not back on lakes yet.
Slavonian Grebe - first bird of year back in breeding plumage
Fulmar - abundant
Gannet - several along coast
Cormorant - common
Bittern - absolute mega!!
Grey Heron - five together
Whooper Swan - common, one fjord held 3,000 birds!
Pink-footed Goose - five
White-fronted Goose - first birds of year
Greylag Goose - common
Barnacle Goose - first birds of year
Shelduck - several of Iceland's latest colonist
Wigeon
Teal
Mallard - common
Pintail - several
Tufted Duck
Scaup
Eider - abundant, one raft at Neskaupstaður was estimated to hold 10,000 birds
Eider x King Eider hybrid - one Eskifjörður
Steller's Eider - the ever popular drake is still at Iceland's remotest village
Harlequin Duck - common. One group of 79 birds was largest I've seen
Long-tailed Duck - common
Common Scoter - 3 seen were first birds of the year
Barrow's Goldeneye - one drake was well out of range
Red-breasted Merganser - locally common
Goosander - single duck
Merlin - two
Gyr Falcon - one seen with Redwing in talons
Oystercatcher - many have arrived inthe last week or two
Golden Plover - very elusive, few birds seen briefly. Will be knee-deep in them in a week's time.
Purple Sandpiper
Snipe - two seen were first arrivals
Redshank
Turnstone
Great Skua - very common and conspicuous on restricted breeding grounds
Black-headed Gull
Herring Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Iceland Gull
Glaucous Gull
Kittiwake
Guillemot
Razorbill
Black Guillemot
Rock Dove/Feral Pigeon
Long-eared Owl - very good bird in Iceland
Meadow Pipit - three seen were first arrivals of spring
Wren
Robin - vagrant and not a bird I get annually
Redwing - abundant. Huge arrivals during the week, thousands and thousands!
Chiffchaff - vagrant. I usually have to wait until September for this.
Goldcrest - bird heard clearly in bare scree slope!!! Definite Goldcrest but not seen.
Raven - very common
Starling
Redpoll -2, one of which was very pale indeed
Snow Bunting - surprisingly thin on the ground. Most have headed inland to breed I presume.
E
