Visiting Iceland next week! (1 Viewer)

I'm planning on travelling to Iceland on the 4th February for a week. Sadly, as a student, I have a very limited budget and will base myself in Reykjavik without a hire car. Are there any birding sites which can be accessed from there by public transport or by foot? Or any general wildlife areas? Any advice would be awesome!

And is there any way to reach Grundafjorder by public transport?

Birding in winter in Iceland is mainly coastal. I'm pretty sure you can get to Grundarfjörður by bus (probably having to change buses in Borgarnes - where I saw two White-tailed Eagles and hundreds of Snow Buntings the other week). https://www.west.is/en/travel/transportation/public-transportation
But Grundarfjörður would make a great base for a couple of days (day trip very unlikely to be feasible on public transport) if you are thinking of spending time there – Harlequins on the sea, masses of white-winged gulls, Gyr Falcon possible, Killer Whales possible in the bay and really great scenery.

In Reykjavík itself the main birding sites are around the harbour (numbers of birds vary greatly for day to day), the bay Fossvogur (south of the city airport), the end of the peninsula at Seltjarnarnes (normally the best site throughout the year but rather quiet now as the lake is frozen) but there will always be sea duck and divers off shore and always a chance of Gyr Falcon (as elsewhere in Reykjavík). Very tame but 100% wild Whooper Swans on the lake in the city centre and there is a single Pink-footed Goose (wild) tagging around with the feral Greylags there too most of the time. You are going to experience the typical winter weather rollercoaster – we have plenty of snow at the moment but it’s going to be warm, wet and windy (i.e. horrible) on Sunday before turning cold and snowy again in the week – expect lethal ice conditions under foot with Sunday’s flash thaw.
Have a good look at eBird to get an idea about where birds are distributed.

Does this means you are going to update your blog soon Gregor?

Just wondering how you got on Gregor and whether you got out in one piece. There have been about 3-4 "non-travel days" in Iceland in the last couple of weeks and wonder if that affected your trip much?