A pair of Common Crossbills came by the garden last week, just this once, as far as we know. We are hoping that these beautiful tame birds come to stay. They eat sunflower seeds from the seed feeders.
The Common Crossbills come and visit every once in a while but more often we see them fly over without coming by.
In the snow yesterday and today birds have streamed into the garden in search of food. We counted 90 Redpolls, 27 Redwings, 10 Blackbirds, 5 Fieldfares, 50 Starlings, a Snow Bunting and a Goldfinch.
This is a bunch of hungry birds and we went out twice today to fill the feeding trays with sunflower seeds and corn, and to give them bread crumbs and apples.
The Goldfinch is still in Selfoss and coming every day to our garden. There was some concern that a Merlin had caught it last weekend. A Merlin made a swift attack and caught a bird but thankfully it was not the Goldfinch as we thought. The next day it appeared again in the garden with the group of Redpolls.
The Goldfinch is staying in the company of Redpolls behaving as they do and eating the same feed. In the last few days it has had to endure a blizzard, frost down to – 13°C and the attacks of a Merlin and a Short-eared Owl.
Again Redpolls have appeared in flocks in Selfoss hunting for food. In the last few days up to 40 have been in our garden. These chirpy and beautiful birds are welcome guests. Few of them were seen here before Christmas and birders and garden owners missed them and speculated as to their whereabouts. Some even maintained that the stock had declined or that Redpolls had fled the country. The truth is that enough seed was to be had in birch forests after a favourable summer. So there was no need for them to leave the forest in search of feed in urban areas. However, here they are again to the joy of probably everyone.
The photos are from this weekend in our garden in Selfoss.
This morning a Goldfinch turned up in the garden. This is a new species in the garden, number 50 and a new bird on our Icelandic bird list. The Goldfinch is common in Europe but seldom ventures more northerly than the southern regions of Scandinavia.
Goldfinches were first seen in Iceland in 2005 and fifteen birds have been spotted since then. Most of these birds have been seen in Hornafjörður in Southeast Iceland. This is the first time the Goldfinch has been seen so westerly.
It is always exciting to see a Gyrfalcon, the biggest falcon in the world. Its main food source in Iceland is the Ptarmigan but it also hunts other birds such as ducks, geese and gulls. Last weekend we saw a Gyrfalcon eating a duck far out on the ice on Ellidavatn Lake, just outside Reykjavik. The Gyrfalcon was shy and not prepared to let a photographer get anywhere near.
By cropping the photo identification was possible and this time the Gyrfalcon had managed to catch a male Red-breasted Merganser.
I found some Common Crossbills on my walk in Grímsnes, South Iceland, last week. One male was already singing. In the last few years the Common Crossbills have started breeding in spruce and pine forests in February although it is still winter.
It will be interesting to see if this will also be the case this winter. We will be keeping an eye on them.
The Ivory Gull is a breeding bird by the shores of the Arctic Sea. It has a near-circumpolar distribution in Arctic seas, breeding from north Canada, Greenland, Svalbard and islands off northern Russia.
Young Ivory Gulls are white with specs of grey and black in the wings and tail. When adult they become all white. Young birds are seen by Icelandic shores every year but grown-ups are rarely seen.
Today and yesterday a young Ivory Gull was seen in Þorlákshöfn, in South Iceland. The photos are taken today.
The American Coot is a very rare visitor in Iceland but one is now staying in the Reykjavík area. This is the sixth bird seen in Iceland so far. In North America the Coot is a common bird in freshwater wetlands. The American Coot is not a duck. It is a relation of the European Coot and is in lineage with cranes and rails.
The Coot is in the company of a group of Mallards that mostly stay on a pond where the birds are fed.
Birch seeds are the main food for Redpolls in the winter months. Last summer a lot of birch seeds matured in the natural Icelandic forests so there is still enough food for them. Redpolls have not been seen in any numbers in gardens and there has been some concern that their numbers are decreasing.
Last winter was harsh and natural feed scarce. The numbers of Redpolls decreased considerably but the drop was far from drastic. In the last few weeks Redpolls have come in the garden in search of food on our feeding trays. The most we have seen recently is 18 birds together.