All posts by Örn Óskarsson

Birds

Whooper Swan family

This Whooper Swan family, with the grown up birds at the front and the back and the chicks between them, flew over Grímsnes in South Iceland yesterday, probably just newly arrived.

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Álft – Whooper Swan – Cygnus cygnus

Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) are now coming to Iceland in huge flocks from their winter grounds in the British Isles. They spread over the whole country in smaller groups and pairs seek their old breeding places with their chicks from last year. When it comes to the nest making the parents chase the grown up chicks away. Often fights break out because the chicks do not want to go .

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Birds

Visitors in the garden – weekly report

This is a list of the birds that have been seen in the garden this past week, March 15 – 22, 2015. Temperatures have been rising this week and it seems that some of the birds have gone to their summer grounds, e.g. the Redpolls mentioned only stayed for two days. 

  • Merlin (smyrill) 2
  • Wren (músarrindill) 1
  • European Robin (glóbrystingur) 1
  • Blackbird (svartþröstur) 4
  • Redwing (skógarþröstur) 5
  • Raven (hrafn) 1
  • Starling (stari) 17
  • Chaffinch (bókfinka) 4
  • Redpoll (auðnutittlingur) 50
  • Common Crossbill (krossnefur) 6

For more information on the visitors in the garden see weekly report: http://ornosk.com/weekly-bird-report/

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Birds

Lesser Blackback

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Sílamáfur – Lesser Blackback – Larus fuscus

The Lesser Blackback (Larus fuscus) started breeding in Iceland around 1920. Since then its numbers have been increasing  and now the Lesser Blackback is a breeding bird in all lowlands. It is the only Gull that is a migratory bird here, having winter grounds in the Pyrenees Mountains and North West Africa. They come back to Iceland very early, before spring arrives. The first Lesser Blackback arrived here in February. The breeding population counts around 50,000 pairs.

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Lesser Blackback – Larus fuscus

This photo is taken in Selfoss April 16, 2014, the second time I came across this indivual bird. It was banded as a small chick in August 2003 in Garðaholti in Álftanes. The first time I saw it was also in Selfoss May 9, 2011.

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Atmosphere, People, Weather

Eclipse of the Sun

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Conditions to observe the solar eclipse in Iceland today were very good. There were clear skies and people could be seen all over the place with special glasses so as to be able to look at the sun without damaging their eyes.

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The total phase of the solar eclipse was not visible in Iceland, but it could be observed there as a partial solar eclipse. The Moon covered only a small portion of the Sun as can be seen in the photoes here.

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Birds

Crossbills always attract attention

Today we had six Common Crossbills or  Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra)  in the garden, both males and females. In the last year they have become regular guests here in our garden.

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Krossnefur – Common Crossbill /Red Crossbill – Loxia curvirostra (female)

These colorurful birds always attract our attention when they turn up. The photoes were taken yesterday, March 12.

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Krossnefur – Common Crossbill /Red Crossbill – Loxia curvirostra (male)
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People

Visiting Birdwatchers

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Peter Colston, Simon Dennis, Peter Gluth, Antoine Rougeron and Léa Champion

These are today’s guests from England and France, all keen birdwatchers and some even quite famous as such.  They came to see our garden birds and despite the heavy storm yesterday a few interesting birds had come back.

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They saw a few Common Crossbills, some Redpolls, a Starling and a Wren.

Common Crossbills
Common Crossbills
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Birds

Spring loudly announced its coming

Spring loudly announced its coming this morning. Heavy southerly winds, with rainfall, blew most of the snow away. The temperature went up + 6-8 °C last night and at last most of the ice has melted away. The weather was so bad over most of the country that people were told to stay inside. There were floods, trees were blown down, roofs blew off, boats were in danger, etc. Click on the link to see pictures on mbl.is

This is Ölfusá River at noon today.

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