The Ptarmigan has almost shed its summer plumage, getting whiter every day. While the ground is snowless it is easy to spot this tame bird. Tomorrow is the start of the hunting season, which lasts 12 days or four long weekends. Estimated breeding population has dropped from last year. Despite this the number of hunting days has not been changed. Hopefully it will snow so the Ptarmigan will not be as easy to spot. According to the weather forecast this might come true tomorrow.
Last month the Icelandic Forestry Association announced Tree of the year 2015. This special tree is a rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) that was planted in 1923 in Sandfell in Öræfi, Southeast Iceland.
It is a special tree for many reasons. The weather conditions in Öræfi are not ideal. Here you get the strongest storms in Iceland. This rowan is very prominent in the scenery, it has seven thick trunks and it stands alone below the mountain Sandfell. The lady who planted the tree got it as a present from a friend.
In the settlement of Iceland around the year 900 the area around Sandfell was claimed by a woman. She was a widow named Thorgerdur and the first woman to claim land as her own.
Again tonight the Northern Lights continued to light up the sky. I never tire of photographing them and hope that you too, enjoy seeing them here.
Several webpages give forecasts of expected Aurora activity. This is from the Icelandic Met Office:
http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/
Veiðivötn, Fishing Lakes, are a cluster lakes in the Southern Interior. The lakes are renowned for trout fishing. The area is worth visiting for its magnificent scenery and birdlife. Click to see the slideshow.
The Great Northern Diver, or Common Loon, has now left its summer breeding grounds in highland lakes and moved to the ocean around the country. In the interior we came across a few of them but it’s already getting colder and snowing so the few that are there still will be moving on quite soon.
The scenery in the Icelandic highlands is magnificent in all its diversity and colours. Barren black desert sands and multicoloured mountains are a fascinating attraction. Fjallabak Nature Reserve is one of the places that many visit and not without reason. It is famous for its natural geothermal hot springs and colourful rhyolite mountains.
Landamannalaugar is a very popular destination, at the beginning of the hiking trail Laugavegur. Lots of people come there and enjoy a bath in the hot springs.
The route to the area is rather rough and not recommended for small cars.
From far off you can easily mistake white cottongrass (Eriophorum scheuchzeri) for snow. Its beautiful white fields are very prominent in the scenery. Here in Kýlingar, near Landamannalaugar in the Southern Interior, white cottongrass grows in the fertile soil from a former glacial river. 40 years ago there used to be a lake here that has been filling up with mud and clay from the river. Now we have this beautiful wetland with shallow crystal clear creeks and cotton grass growing luxuriantly.
The bird life in the spring is probably an interesting sight but it is not an easy place to visit because the roads usually do not open until late June or beginning of July.
The Landmannalaugar area attracts a lot of tourists in the summer time. For photographers it is exceptional in its diversity and colours. Here is Atli photographing, visit his Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/atlapix/
The wail of the Great Northern Diver (Common Loon) is very familiar and is used unsparingly in the film industry. It is one of the top ten sound effects we all recognise from movies. Hear it here. Movies from all over the world seem to use its call. To the ear of the birder it sounds very silly, especially when it is used in places far from the Great Northern Diver’s habitat.
On our birding trips we often meet like-minded people. Last year we met a group of Belgian students on a birding trip in Iceland. This was in February and the weather was quite cold. The group were searching for a Hooded Merganser on Elliðavatn, a lake just outside Reykjavik.
When we found out that they were sleeping in tents we invited them to come and stay inside the next night. No Icelanders would ever think of camping in February. The group took our offer and we cooked them some traditional Icelandic lamb soup.
One of these young birding friends was back in Iceland again last week. Joachim Bertrands from Belgium and his mother, Denise, had a week here to look at birds, whales and glaciers. The bird reserve in Flói was visited on their last day and then they came for a visit. Meeting birders from other countries is always interesting.
Common Crossbills (also called Red Crossbills) are new breeding birds in Iceland. New spruce and pine forests are growing fast in many places and are now big enough to be a habitat for some new settlers like the Crossbills. The Crossbills have various colours.