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WILD ICELAND

A natural history hit-list of quality over quantity

By Nick Gates

November 1^st, 2021

Iceland is a country I've always wanted to visit. It's one of those places that has such a unique assemblage of flora and fauna, coupled with such extraordinary geology, that there really is nowhere else like it. Bath-temperature rivers from which you can watch ravens hunting ptarmigan, the youngest rocks on earth providing future nesting sites for the most impressive falcon on the planet and some of the richest coastal waters anywhere in the Atlantic (hiding the largest animal ever to have lived) are just a few of the reasons this island had bumped up to the top of my must-visit list. Oh, and it's one of the best place in the world to see Arctic foxes, a creature whose phenomenal will to survive once included an individual walking 2000 miles across the ice from Norway to Canada. True story.

We decided on a mid-October trip to give us a good chance at the northern lights, whilst also still hoping to pickup a few late migrants. Our target species for this one were harlequin duck, gyrfalcon, Barrow's goldeneye, Arctic fox, and any of a long list of potential cetaceans. Rather than go across the whole island for these, we decided to focus our efforts on the region that gave us the most realistic chance of picking off all of these: the far north.

Day 1

We chose to travel with Icelandair, arriving in Akureyri on the 6.35pm from Keflavik, picking up our hire car from Akureyri Rent-a-Car and heading straight to a great little hotel nearby in town, rather originally called... Hotel Akureyri. This small fishing town, affectionately known as "The Capital of North Iceland" is a great base from which to start your explorations in this region. And the hotel itself offers a brilliant breakfast, with healthy options to kickstart your day.

Buzzing to get the trip started, we woke early and went for a wander round town in the dark, accompanied by a near-permanent 'tszeep tszeep' of redwings wherever we walked. Combined with a small flock of greylags that were grazing along the grass on the runway, our bird list was off the blocks.

As first light broke, we assembled the kit, got the scope on its legs, and went for a quick roundup of the ponds and harbour that border Akureyri.

Day 2

The redwings (bottom right, on the paving) in Akureyri were remarkably tame

Akureyri harbour from the southern corner. The spit the gulls roost on is visible on the right.

This proved very productive, with good numbers of tufted duck, scaup and mallard, as well as a family of whooper swans on the ponds, and long-tailed ducks, eider, purple sandpipers, guillemots, black guillemots and a good selection of gulls including Icelandic and glaucous out in the harbour. It felt like a great place to pick up a rarity but we worked through all the flocks and none jumped out. The gulls liked to roost on the south eastern corner of the main harbour wall, and, somewhat bizarrely, on the spit at the southern end of the harbour that jutted out under the runway. I'm sure each time a plane comes in it must scatter them, though it wasn't a busy airport.

Sadly the forecast was looking pretty cloudy for the next few days, so we stocked up on supplies from the little supermarket in town (just in case the weather really closed in) and set off across the mountains for our evening accommodation at Lake Mývatn.

Our first pin of the day was one of the favourite tourist destinations in this region, a stunning wide waterfall called Goðafoss. As we were passing, we couldn't miss the opportunity to stop in.

With a healthy dose of natural wonder in the bag, we resumed our trip east aiming for a small lake west of Mývatn called Másvatn, which I'd heard was attractive to great northern divers. Though initially appearing to be quiet, a scan of the margins resulted in our first sighting of a pair of Barrow's goldeneye, whilst feeding in the frozen grasses around the edge of the lake were the odd pair of greylag geese. Barrow's goldeneye are often seen in mated pairs as, after the summer moult, pairs reunite to spend the winter together.

After a little patient work with the scope, we did pick out a distant lone diver, avidly working the lake's reportedly abundant brown trout and arctic char population.

With unexpectedly good views of the first of our target species, we continued east, aiming for the 'Duck Capital of Europe': Lake Mývatn. In summer, this extraordinary lake hosts as many as 15 different breeding species of duck, which might even make it the 'Duck Capital of the World'! Though in winter many of those species migrate south, the two nearctic species that we'd come to see here in their only Western Palearctic range - Barrow's goldeneye and harlequin duck - are resident all year round. As the winter ice begins to reduce the surface area of the main lake, and particularly the available feeding areas that the ducks can dive to, both species are drawn to the outflow of the lake where it feeds the river Laxá - as the moving water here remains ice-free for much longer. This was where we were aiming for. There's a fantastic pull-in here, with lots of room to scope from the top of the hill at a wide stretch of river below. It's also a good place to get your bearings for the higher landmarks in the area that might host gyrfalcons.

The scope view down the valley yielded impressive flocks of Barrow's goldeneyes, with every calm eddy on the otherwise fast-flowing river holding flocks of between ~10 and 100 birds. There were also a few scaup, mergansers, gadwall, wigeon and mallard in various small mixed flocks, whilst the Barrow's goldeneyes were always in their own single-species flocks.

Whilst scoping these ducks, we had one of the most unexpected wildlife encounters of the trip. The hillsides around the river here were covered in an extensive covering of dwarf willow, amongst other low growth scrub. We noticed a pair of ravens come in and land in it a few hundred metres to our left. I always enjoy seeing ravens playing on the wind, so took time to watch them as they took it in turns to alight, fly 50m or so down the valley, and drop into the scrub. They did this alternately about four times, but then one of them flushed a group of redwings as it landed. Its mate, already on the wing just a short way behind immediately gave chase, and what ensued was a hawk-like dogfight chase as the raven closed in on a redwing, jinking and turning in Accipiter fashion as it tried to catch up with the redwing. The chase lasted about 500m down the valley, with the raven closing to less than a metre from the tail of the redwing before the latter banked hard vertically up and rolled up and off in a manoeuvre that the raven couldn't replicate, and it pulled out of the chase. I enquired with various naturalist colleagues about this behaviour and none had seen a raven hunting in this fashion. It may well be a local adaptation in winter, when an abundant supply of redwings were building in numbers ready to migrate south.

We decided to carry on to the lake itself and had time for one loop to check out a few pins we'd prepared. This yielded a lone duck teal and frequent parties of dozens of redwings - by far the most numerous species on the trip. As the light faded, we finally spotted the distinctive silhouette of a raptor perched atop a volcanic stack by the roadside. Approaching slowly, we pulled over to get binocular views. With the bird accepting of our presence, we decided to get out, using the car as a blind, and setup the scope. OUR FIRST GYRFALCON!! And what a magnificent bird it was. Even in the fading light, the shear bulk of this arctic falcon was clear to see. It was a fine way to end the first proper day of our trip and a good omen for things to come. We headed back to our brilliant accommodation at the Laxá Hótel and prepared for an early start to continue our mission!

Polite note: please do not contact me asking for pin locations - I won't be disclosing anymore information than shared in this blog post about the location of the gyrs we saw.

Day 3

The following morning, we scoured the topography map and set ourselves a route for the day that included all the potential gyrfalcon lookouts in the area. In this volcanic landscape, these birds of prey are fairly spoilt for choice with nesting opportunities, so we knew we'd have to put in the hours on the scopes to pin any down. Particularly as they're able to travel huge distances when out hunting. With our appetite whet by the previous evening's encounter, we set out feeling hopeful that we'd cross paths with another of these exquisite birds.

A few hours later, we'd managed to spot a couple of snow buntings and a lone arctic merlin. However, as the terrain became increasingly undulating, and potential eyries loomed on every horizon, our hopes were high that around any bend we might spot what we were after - a large vertical cliff face within scoping distance of the road.

And then, as we reached the apex of a very long hill, we saw in the distance a cliff that looked absolutely perfect. We stopped just over the brow of the hill, set the scope and began scanning the face. There were a few telltale signs that implied the cliff was being used as a roost by a bird of prey, with the distinctive smattering of white highlighting favoured perches. As we slowly scanned the imposing rockface, a "kee-kee-kee" caught my attention behind us. Spinning around to search with my binoculars, I nearly fell over as I picked out an adult male gyrfalcon making a beeline high over the top of us in the direction of the cliff, calling as he flew. He was a slight bird, carrying a large clump of white feathers in his talons. It could only be the remains of one species - their favourite prey in this landscape - a ptarmigan! Steadying ourselves on the car, we both locked onto the bird as he flew away in the direction of the cliff. But despite our best efforts, we eventually lost him in the blur of whites and greys a few kilometres away.

Fortunately, we could see the road, though dipping into the valley, got considerably closer to the location he'd gone to - and the fact he was calling with prey implied there was likely a female sitting in there somewhere. We closed the distance by about a kilometre, hiked up to the nearest ridge, and started searching again.

We knew they must be up there somewhere, and we were well armed with the Swarovski ATX 95 to give us the detail once we'd found their outlines in our binoculars. Eventually, we found the female, tucked on the edge of a shallow grass-lined ledge, surrounded by white feathers and looking serene in her attire of pale slate-grey wings and strongly streaked front. We watched her for a while, waiting for her to giveaway clues of her mate's whereabouts. We focussed our scanning in a direction that she kept looking at and sure enough, well camouflaged against the top of a boulder, we found the male. Eventually, he relocated nearer her, sitting front on to us to reveal a much paler morph. Not the famed 'white-phase' found in Greenland, but a near-white and well-fed crop flecked with faint grey dashes.

We sat and watched them for about half an hour, as they surveyed their dominion above a small glacial lake from the safe vantage of their rocky home, and then retreated back to our car.

Our mission to see these birds in the wild had exceeded all expectations. It was time to carry on and look for the other species that called this dramatic landscape home.

Day 4

It's always worth chatting to the locals when you visit new places. It may sound obvious, but it's often surprising how many birders just show up at a location because other people have seen something there before. Inevitably, in under-watched and remote areas such as we found ourselves in here, local knowledge can go a very long way.

And so it happened that I was chatting to one of the staff at our hotel, and mentioned that we were looking for Arctic foxes. Most people travel to the west to look for foxes in Iceland, but they occur across the whole island. They just tend to be shier in the centre and east as they get legally hunted more frequently. It's always hard to hear about the hunting of an apex predator, but I found an interesting video about it, from one of the local hunters, here.

The individual I was chatted to was interested in our pursuit, and said that he'd heard of a small village about an hour's drive away that had rescued an Arctic fox cub earlier in the summer - and that the semi-habituated fox was still living locally. This was all the info we needed to head straight there and check it out!

The drive across took us through some of the prettiest terrain we'd seen yet, and included a bonus gyrfalcon hunting the roadside at the highest point we travelled through.

Fjallakaffi

Our destination turned out to be a cafe in a tiny little hamlet. The owners in the Fjallakaffi were very welcoming, and there were one other group of three tourists enjoying the local soup. We promptly ordered two bowls to warm us up and hesitantly enquired as to whether this might be the place where they'd been looking after the rescue Arctic fox.

"The foxes, oh yes, they live over there" said the owner, in perfect English, gesturing to a small area of decking in the garden. Foxes, plural!

"If you'd like, I can see if they'll come out after you've finished your soup?"

I don't think I've ever finished a bowl of soup in so much anticipation and excitement! A few minutes later, the owner re-appeared with a few offcuts of local lamb he'd been cooking with, and asked us to follow him.

We sat down on the frozen ground about 10 metres away from a small entrance under the little area of wooden decking. The cafe owner called, threw a few pieces of lamb onto the ground, whistled to his dogs to follow him, and walked off.

"They should be out in a minute" he said.

Still not quite sure what to expect, we waited. Soon, a small movement was noticeable in the shadow of the gap we were both closely watching. And then, a tentative nose poked out, followed by a grey-haired muzzle and an alert looking face, as the young Arctic fox revealed itself, picking up the scent of a potential meal.

The youngster, in prime condition but with a slight limp, nervously emerged and looked about. Completely ignoring us, it fixated on a dog in the distance, clearly wary of its larger canine cousin. It spent a minute or two hoovering up the scraps of meat, and then disappeared back into its safe space. We never saw the second fox. It was an extraordinarily close encounter, and a real bonus for the trip.

On the way back, we stopped in at the Námafjall geothermal area to get a good close-up look at our first active geysers of the trip.

Day 5

With very few harlequin ducks apparent around Mývatn, we decided to follow the Laxá north to it's confluence with the ocean, a well-known hotspot for wintering harlequin ducks. En route, we drove through flocks of thousands of redwings, with every dwarf willow shimmering in them as they congregated preparing for their migration south.

The view over the Laxá's final waterfall before the see is dramatic, a foaming fizz of fast-flowing white water full of turbulent pockets. In the open water below this were large flocks of red-breasted mergansers, but right amongst the white water were our targets: harlequin ducks. Resting up on the side of the water, either standing on vegetation or exposed rocks, every so often they'd drop into the current and disappear feeding under the water. Watching them like this, you can see how their stiff tail feathers act like a rudder, holding them like an aerofoil at their preferred angle to feed.

The light was unfortunately very flat but we counted at least 28 harlequin ducks and drakes working this area, sometimes travelling from the top of the waterfall to the bottom. On the riverbank there were a set of harlequin tail and wing feathers, and the remains of a cached goose, strongly indicative of Arctic fox presence in the area. On the black sand beach, we also spotted a lone harbour seal hauled out, our second mammal species for the trip.

Day 6

For our last day of the shared trip, we decided to do a bit of coastal cetacean watching, so worked the coastline from Húsavík, across to Akureyri, and then up to Ólafsfjörður. You can take a toll tunnel to take the fast route into Akureyri but it's well worth going across the top on route 84, as the view down the east side of fjord Ey is spectacular. With imposing cliffs towering up behind you, and an excellent vantage point across the water from the many pull-ins (e.g. here), it's worth spending some time here scanning for hunting gyrfalcons and enjoying the vast flocks of eider and long-tailed duck that settle in the bay.

Be aware, on some mornings you'll find small boats travelling into the area carrying 2-3 people armed with shotguns, as there is a subsistence duck hunt here. The ducks are shot on the water and then scooped out with nets.

Whilst we were checking through the common eider hoping that we'd pick out a king eider, we spotted a gyrfalcon hurtling down from the cliffs. At first it looked like it was after the ducks but it gave chase to a kittiwake, the latter narrowly avoiding becoming lunch by ditching at the last minute into and completely under the water. The gyrfalcon pulled out and then took off after a purple sandpiper, the two flying incredibly high as the sandpiper worked hard to keep above the falcon - a common strategy of prey to make the final upwards lunge (competing with gravity) less likely to be successful.

There are pretty little old fishing villages all the way up the west coast of fjord Ey.

Despite the windy conditions, we managed to pick out three different feeding parties of humpback whales, nine individuals in total in groups of two, three and four. They were feeding close to the surface with the occasional deeper dive, showing off their enormous tales as they tipped vertical and disappeared.

Iceland is increasingly becoming one of Europe's premier cetacean-watching destinations, with the summer months offering a fair chance of seeing everything from tiny porpoises to blue whales, the largest animal ever to have lived. Húsavík is where most of the boats leave from in the north, and I'd recommend booking a trip with the hugely experienced Gentle Giants.

That evening, we flew back down to Reykjavík, where Ben caught a flight back to the UK and I continued for a few more days of exploring.

Day 7

My goal for the day was to head into the interior and look for more species, particularly Arctic fox and ptarmigan, but I was also keen to visit both the volcano and some of the famous freshwater hot springs that provided natural baths.

First stop was the fascinating Þingvellir / Thingvellir National Park. If you've got time, I'd really recommend booking the snorkelling trip at Silfra, where you can swim in the rift between the tectonic boundary of the North American and Eurasian plates! Sadly I hadn't factored this into this trip, but it's a good excuse to return in the future.

As I drove east, I'd occasionally come across huge flocks of whooper swans, with one field containing 417 individuals all arranged in their family groups. I have been fortunate enough to be on Islay in the Hebrides when these same birds arrive to the UK, and it was clear from the profuse trumpeting and wing displays that these birds would be leaving for the south any day now. There were many wild greylags, the odd white-fronted goose and a few pink footed geese too.

It's noticeable when you're driving around Iceland just how little roadkill there is. This contrasts heavily with my experience in other destinations, with perhaps the worst being Tasmania where it was common to see dozens of large mammals littering the roadsides each journey. But with so few species in the winter, just two land mammals, and the lowest population density in Europe, fortunately the opportunities for animals to be killed on the roads were evidently fewer.

Interestingly, driving at night in the south, which had significantly less snow cover than the north, I'd often encounter wood mice skipping across the road in front of me. On one journey I saw eight, including two that must have bounced off car wheels as they were dead on the road.

Long-eared owls colonised Iceland between 2000 and 2003, and with such a high rodent population and increasing woodland cover in Iceland, I expect they'll continue to thrive there.

Day 8

I was holding out for the weather to improve before I hiked the volcano, but there was no sign that it would before the end of my trip, so I bit the bullet, layered up with my waterproofs and started the ascent. I had seen some spectacular images of the Fagradalsfjall volcano taken by my friend earlier in the summer, with a steady flow of bubbling larva spewing out the top. However, visibility was perhaps 100m at the top and the volcano was currently lying in a quieter phase, so I didn't get the excitement of seeing the roaring inferno!

The Icelandic authorities had done a really good job of providing both a clear parking area, and a really well-signposted route up to the lava field, and though steep in some places on Route B, the choice of routes meant it was accessible for anyone with moderate hiking fitness.

I don't think anything can prepare you for your first view of a vast lava field. The first thing that hits you is the smell, a pungent mix of sulphur and bromine that steadily intensified as I got nearer. The folded sheets of black porous rock disappeared as far as I could see, and all over the cracked surface were vents exhaling a concoction of deep-earth gases. These were the youngest rocks on planet Earth.

Sitting down at the boundary between the larva sheet and the rocks and vegetation it was consuming, I picked up a few cracked pieces of this young rock. The upper-side had an iridescent sheen to it, whilst the underside was covered in tiny stalactite-like projections, presumably stretched out as the rock cooled, warped and shrank. The whole vista with its folds and undulations had the look of a liquid, yet it was clearly solid rock. Boulders in the way of the lava flow had been picked up or smothered. If your familiar with the Lord of the Rings books, this was as close as I'd come to ever seeing Mordor.

With the visibility getting worse by the minute, I fired off a few pictures and headed back for the car.

Day 9

I've had a tip off that the Hlíðarvatn Lake was a great place to see a wide range of duck species, but also good for raptors, so I headed there first thing. Sure enough, there were triple-figure numbers of scaup, long-tailed duck, wigeon and mallard, and I had an excellent view of a young male merlin. The topography here looked good for gyrfalcon but I couldn't find any.

As I finished the drive around the perimeter of the lake, I noticed a cairn-type structure with lots of white blobs on it in the distance. Focussing my binoculars onto it, I was quite surprised to see a large flock of ptarmigan, still moulting out of their summer plumage. There were eight in total, taking it in turns to go and feed in the grasses before returning to the group lookout. I waited with them for about an hour, quietly hoping that a gyrfalcon might explode onto the scene any second. But no such drama was to arrive today, so I left them to it.

The gravel track roads were proving productive so I decided to head inland and keep working these smaller roads. Perhaps surprisingly, this revealed that much of this region is covered in grassland, not a habitat-type you first associate with Iceland.

I'd stop every so often to investigate an interesting lichen or moss, or to listen out for the calls of snow buntings which could be found with patient scanning feeding on the grass seeds.

On one of these pit stops, a white movement disappearing over a nearby hill caught my eye. Could it be? I repositioned, slowly creeping the car forward to give me a better angle of the reverse of the hillside. And then, on short, purposeful footsteps, almost a trot, a white Arctic fox walked out and paused. Frozen to the spot, we eyeballed each other for a few seconds, as I did my best to appear as unthreatening as possible. But this only briefly worked, before the short footsteps started again and the little fox zig-zagged its way up the next hillside. It did stop every hundred metres or so, looking back over its should to check I wasn't pursuing it. I was glad it was so nervous of me, hopefully, despite it's conspicuous coat this individual will avoid the hunters over the winter and make it to the breeding season.

Day 10

For my final day of the trip, I was keen to explore one of the many natural hotsprings in Iceland. This part of the country, known as The Golden Circle, is famous for the number of thermal baths it has. These range from highly-popular tourist spots such as the Blue Lagoon, to sightly more off-beat routes that take a bit more of a trek to reach. One of these can be found at Reykjadalur, where I'd read that after an easy 3km uphill hike you reach a bath-temperature river.

Parking at the bottom, I stopped for a quick bite at the super-scenic Reykjadalur Café (which had a great range of vegetarian options) and then set off up the well-marked mountain path.

All the way up the route, there are small vents letting off steam. It's fascinating getting a close-up look at some of these tiny vents, where the earth gently bubbles in a grey mud in this geothermal landscape.

After 3km you eventually reach a section of river, obviously warm as it's steaming, bordered by wooden decking. On these you'll find a few privacy screens to change behind. It's worth continuing as far upriver as the route allows, as the water gets hotter the further upstream you walk.

Wait until you start seeing small dams made from rocks, where people have segregated bits of the river to make their own little bathing pools. This is where you'll be able to jump into bath-temperature water and enjoy a welcome natural soak after your short hike!

Gullfoss

If you're in this region, be sure to visit Europe's largest waterfall. A giant drop in the river Hvítá, which drains the glacier lake Hvítávatn fed by the Lángjökull glacier has created the Gulfoss Falls. Walking through mist-filled air down to the viewing point, the noise of water dropping 100ft into the canyon below is formidable. A raw, power-of-nature spectacle.

Urban Ptarmigan

Don't forget to keep an eye out at the airport for the local urban ptarmigan feeding in the area!

Undisclosed location

A final bird we'd hoped to see on this trip was the white-tailed eagle. Sadly, these eagles have been heavily persecuted in Iceland, and for a long time were almost exclusively restricted to the remote western island groups off the mainland. However, in recent years, they have been slowly recovering in numbers. On our travels around this region, we were pleasantly surprised to spot an adult pair, well outside of their documented range and very clearly holding a territory. This gave me great hope that, as with eagles across much of Europe, the birds are increasingly being seen as a benefit to the ecosystems that they once managed; allowing them to reclaim long-quiet eyries.

Weather

A final note. The weather in Iceland can change extremely fast. One minute it can be sunny, and the next minute you'll find yourself in a snow storm. Always keep a thermos of hot water handy and remember that even in mild conditions, it's worth having all the layers handy to assume you might need to sleep in the car if you get stuck in a snow drift.

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