Golden Plovers have now started arriving in huge flocks. Yesterday in Flói in South Iceland, they were in the hundreds. The Golden Plover is a migrator that goes to the British Isles for the coldest months of winter, usually leaving in October and coming back in April.
It is one of the best-loved Icelandic birds and its arrival signals the coming of spring. Its ideal habitat is dry heathland both in lowlands and highlands and the breeding population in Iceland counts around 300,000 pairs.
Three to six Fieldfares have resided here this winter, feeding on the apples we put out every day. They are fierce birds and intent on surviving. They fight for their apples, determined to keep other thrushes away.
Now when the Redwings have arrived they have a hard time keeping the apples for themselves. Famished the Redwings come at them from all sides and the battle is on.
Redwings in the thousands arrived in Iceland on April 1st and 2nd. The groups in our garden were obviously tired and famished after their flight from the British Isles. Up to 65 Redwings were counted here, feeding on apples and sunflower seeds.
We expect spring to greet our newcomers warmly but that is not the case now. The weather has been windy with frost and snow – not a warm welcome at all. The Redwings, however, do not seem troubled and are already singing their hearts out which is sure to signal the coming of warmer days.
Migrators have started arriving and among these is the Oystercatcher. The country doesn’t great them with spring in the air but cold and snowy weather.
The Oystercatcher is usually one of the first migrants to arrive and signal the coming of a new season. In their bright orange beaks and feet they are such a beautiful sight and their unique call does not go unnoticed.
The Oystercatcher is mostly a migrant here and quite common in lowlands in the summer time. Most Oystercatchers go to the British Isles in the autumn and come back in March to April.
The newest addition to the birds in the garden are Rock Doves . They are becoming more common in gardens especially during the coldest days of winter when the ground is covered in snow.
Rock Doves are the wild version of the pigeons that we are familiar with from all around the world. In multitudes feral pigeons , descendants of the Rock Dove, have crowded cities much to the annoyance of many.
For a long time a small population of Rock Doves have bred in rock cliffs in East Iceland. With a warmer climate and more grain being grown in Iceland, the population is getting bigger and spreading to South Iceland.
Year after year the Raven pair comes back to build a nest above the entrance to the Hardware store BYKO in Selfoss.
Here you can watch how they are getting along: https://g0.ipcamlive.com/player/player.php?alias=krummi
Since October last this Jackdaw has been in and around Selfoss. It has been visiting us nearly daily since the last week of November. It comes for the feed we put out and in the afternoon it follows the Ravens to its sleeping place in Mount Ingólfsfjall, about 3 km from Selfoss. It seems quite well adapted to the Icelandic climate.
This little crow is still as shy and difficult to photograph as before, only the slightest movement inside the living room gets it up in the air. It is still the only Jackdaw in Iceland as far as we know.
For several years I have kept track of the number of birds and species here in our garden. Weekly, since 2014, these observations have been published here. The Redpoll is probably the most common bird in the garden and in February in recent years there have sometimes been up to 140 Redpolls here at the same time. This winter, however, has turned out to be quite different. The number of Redpolls has dropped dramatically. On average in February there have only been around 13 Redpolls here daily. The same goes for other places where feed is put out here in the Southwest.
Fluctuations in population sizes from year to year are normal and are more a rule than an exception. The reasons can be various, such as shortage of food, diseases, migration or a combination of these. Redpolls are not migrators but since their main food source, birch seed, was scarce last autumn they may have opted to migrate and will possibly return next spring.
In the last two weeks we have had very cold weather with temperatures going down to minus 10 to 12 degrees here in Selfoss. This cold weather seems to attract predatory birds, see our latest blogs on The White-tailed Eagle, and this weekend we also saw two Gyrfalcons here on the river by Selfoss. One of them was eating a duck.
The Gyrfalcon is a majestic bird and always a treat to see. We watched one of them hunting by the river which is home to a lot of ducks, geese, whooper Swans and gulls. When a White-tailed Eagle appeared in the area the Gyrfalcon was not willing to give up its place and despite being much smaller attacked and drove it away.
With White-tailed Eagles and Gyrfalcons surging over the river it surely is a very special place.
This snowy Sunday morning we saw a big bird out on the river and for the second time this week we spot a White-tailed Eagle, – see our last blog. It stayed there for quite a while and when it flew away down the river we decided to go for a drive and see if we could spot it again.
On the outskirts of town we noticed it out on the ice, or so we thought. However, after some consideration we saw it was a younger eagle, the white was missing from the tail feathers. When it took off we saw the other one.
The uproar and commotion they caused was quite a sight. Panicked ducks and smaller birds took flight in a flash and the two of them were followed and harassed by flocks of Ravens and Gulls.