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We boarded the 8:40 pm red-eye from JFK to Reykjavik on May 28; the intention was to sleep on the plane but with the excitement of travel and possibilities swirling around my head I didn’t sleep a wink (*tip – Iceland Air offers free stopovers for up to seven days as you travel from the US to Europe! Trips Europe Iceland seabirds'
Snow Bunting, Jökulsarlon, Iceland, January 22, 2025 Common Eider, near Höfn, Iceland, January 24, 2025 Greylag Goose, Jökulsarlon, Iceland, January 22, 2025 Photos by Andreas Goeckede… Source
Iceland Gulls do not breed in Iceland. But if one detaches “Ice&# from “land&# and puts a hyphen between the two the name seems much more fitting, because while they do not breed in Iceland they are usually seen when the land is covered in ice. … a.
Most birders, including the American Ornithologists’ Union, accept Kumlien’s Gull as a subspecies of Iceland Gull. Still others say that Thayer’s Gull , Iceland Gull , and Kumlien’s Gull are all a single species and we all are kidding ourselves by pretending otherwise. Confused, of course. glaucoides, L.
That was alright though, as a short time later Eric Miller spotted an Iceland Gull in our wake that certainly provided the opportunity for some photography! Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides both above and below (Click the one below to embiggen it.). Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla.
I am not prepared to commit on its provenance; numbers on the estuary are already increasing even before the autumnal equinox and it would be impossible to distinguish home-grown birds from those that have flown in from Iceland, Greenland and high Canada.
My thoughts vacillated between Ring-billed Gull because it seemed small to Iceland Gull because it was so darn white and the structure just felt right. But how does one compare the likelihood of a June Iceland Gull loafing amid sunbathers the odds of a bleached out and freaky looking Ring-billed Gull ?
Along the wayward route, the Phalarope made stops in Iceland, Greenland, the continental U.S., Scientists who attached tracking devices to 10 of the birds in 2012 were shocked to discover that one had flown west across the Atlantic Ocean, and eventually settled down on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in South America.
Iceland Gull. Iceland Gull 2. Chumming commenced once we cleared the inlet and we quickly had a nice flock of gulls behind us with the occasional Northern Gannet swinging into the chum scrum to see what was available. Northern Gannet. Numbers of some of the better birds are below, stolen from Sean Simes email to the state listserv.
Even more exciting than close range waterfowl was the Iceland Gull I picked out from among the gulls that roost on the ice. Iceland Gulls look good even when surrounded by goose poop. Though this Pied-billed Grebe is less adapted for cold weather than the Ruddy Ducks it was more active and seemed to be doing alright.
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was a long overdue but still unexpected sighting at Baisley Pond Park in Queens, an Iceland Gull. I was most impressed this weekend with a Carolina Wren that would be much better off south of the Mason-Dixon line than it is here in Rochester. How about you? What was your best bird of the weekend?
Pied Wagtail – male Our Pied Wagtails are a different race to the familiar White Wagtail of Europe many of which will also pass through Britain heading for Iceland.
Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was any one of the five Iceland Gulls spotted at the Beacon Train Station where a massive-by-New-York-standards twitch for a Slaty-backed Gull seen the day before failed to turn up the guest of honor. What was your best bird of the weekend?
Migration makes them vulnerable to straying: Accidental Hoary Bats have been found as far afield as Bermuda and Iceland. Spring migration is more sedate, and opposite of most songbirds the females travel first, already pregnant, to stake out their summer territories.
And, most recently, I returned to Bush Terminal Piers Park, where I saw an Iceland Gull a few weeks back, to try once more for the long-staying Eurasian Wigeon. All the usual gulls were around, but nothing that my inexperienced eye could pick out as a rarity, not even the Iceland Gull from last time.
Another location factor is highlands versus lowlands – Whooper Swans breeding in Icelandic lowlands had a much higher breeding success than the highland birds ( source ). It states that populations of Whooper Swans grow 30 times faster inside nature reserves than outside.
Over Thursday and Friday we also began to see large numbers of Northern Wheatears on the British east coast and small numbers of Lapland Buntings on the west coast appear.
Sure, we got a couple of young Iceland Gulls that didn’t stay with the boat for long and, yes, a couple of nice Lesser Black-backed Gulls were cool, but no Black-legged Kittiwakes , no Glaucous Gulls , and nothing else other than Great Black-backed Gulls , Herring Gulls , and a few Bonaparte’s Gulls.
What about Norway and Iceland? Iceland recently announced a quota of 100 fin whales - an endangered species - which is a dramatic increase its original self-assigned quota of nine. Tags: norway iceland whale Japan whaling. And they flagrantly continue killing. They also almost doubled their quota of Minke whales. ".
European Golden-Plovers ( Pluvialis apricaria ) on their breeding ground in Iceland CC-BY Elma Morphological analyses placed the tundra plovers squarely among all the other plovers — including dotterels , Killdeer , and Snowy and Kentish Plovers — for many years.
Once considered a subspecies of Iceland Gull , it is now known to be nothing more than a hybrid between the white-winged Iceland Gull and the black-patterned Thayer’s Gull. And this is where your lists hit the fan: what was that bird again you put on your year/life/whatever list as “Iceland Gull”?
It breeds in a broad and not quite coherent band from Iceland in the west through central Europe and southern Scandinavia all the way to eastern Russia, wintering in Africa, parts of India, and Southeast Asia to Australia.
A pair did lay infertile eggs in Iceland in 2018, but that’s about the only record I can find). Intriguingly, the population of Dark-bellied Brent Geese has also increased hugely during the same period, but the birds show no signs of colonising Europe, and there are hardly any records of them nesting away from the arctic tundra. (A
First was an awesome stay in Iceland. Here’s his second stop: Our second destination after Iceland was St. Petersburg on Iceland Air, which saved us time and helped us avoid a night’s stay at a hotel. Between finishing one graduate program and beginning another, he embarked on a whirlwind tour of Europe. Petersburg, Russia.
. “Climate change is likely to be driving this change because godwits nest earlier in warmer years, and birds that hatch earlier will have more time to gain the body condition needed for migration and to find good places to spend the winter, which can help them to return early to Iceland when they come back to breed.”
Eurasian Wigeon Ross’s Goose Upland Sandpiper Little Gull Wilson’s Phalarope Marbled Godwit Least Tern Iceland Gull Many of these would be great additions to the yard list. Now wouldn’t that be cool. A “Woodpeckery thing” with some number of toes. However, it was, in fact, a CACKLING GOOSE, as Corey guessed.
Perhaps the biggest event of this winter has been the late winter occurrence of hundreds of ‘white-winged gulls’ from Shetland to Dover and seemingly at all points in between we, in Britain & Ireland, have been inundated with Iceland Gulls and Glaucous Gulls in recent weeks.
While on a residency in Iceland, during which I pursued interests in music and invention, I brought a camera to record little moments in a strange new landscape. It was kindled by my grandmother when I was a child but lay dormant until I’d spent enough time in San Francisco to feel at home.
The gulls were basically roosting at least 20 birds deep, often more, for as far up and down the beach as we could see and more were flying in continuously.
Whooper Swans ( Cygnus cygnus ) The Whooper Swans of the UK and Ireland generally come from Iceland. The site is an important wintering site of Whooper Swans , a large Arctic migrant that is found across the northern extent of Eurasia. They are popular birds, and are the National Bird of Finland.
It breeds in Greenland, Iceland and Svalbard and overwinters (singly and at mountain top hot springs – if Hollywood is to be trusted) along the coasts of northern Europe. discovered that the usual flock of several thousand Pink-footed Geese was wintering in the Broads National Park.
At the same time as he was doing his study on Kumlein’s (Iceland) Gulls and Thayer’s Gulls Smith supposedly gathered data on both Common Ringed and Semipalmated Plover (which both nested in the area) and the hybridization of the two species.
The Iceland Gull at Wanchese was a no-show. The addition of Blue-winged Teal and Marsh Wren at Bodie Island, owl-less during the day, pulled me to 198. The ducks, like this Northern Pintail , are plentiful and unworried at Bodie Island. It was then that things started falling apart. The Little Gulls at Jeanette’s Pier were out to sea.
Remarkably, al-Maghrib’’s Kitab al-Juhrafiya ( Geography ) even makes mention of Ireland and Iceland, islands at the edge of the known world at the time, and identifies these places as sources of this coveted falcon. Image: Portrait of a Gyrfalcon, Viewed from Three Sides , by the Lombard Master (fl. 1540 – 1560).
Listen up, listers: If you’ve got an Iceland list, you might need to amend it … the country has gained six new nesting species in the 21st century. It’s a sad day for nestcam watchers, as a Bald Eagle nonchalantly snatched one of Rachel and Steve’s Osprey fledglings. But thankfully, there’s other bird news that’s more positive.
I asked if the butterfly stood a chance of returning to the shore, to find out that it is a long range migrant, braving the winds of the North Atlantic while traveling all the way from Africa to Iceland! After a light seafood lunch and some local brew, we went to the hills surrounding the Finikas.
In June of 2013 he embarked on a whirlwind tour of Europe, spotting birds in Iceland , Russia , Finland , and, as you’re about to find out, Sweden: We took a quick flight from Helsinki and arrived in Stockholm, Sweden, arriving at our fourth country on this trip.
We finally connected with a decent gull there when we spotted an Iceland Gull but the real highlight of the bay was the flock of Greater Scaup that took to wing as we steamed past.
But Corey’s Best Bird of the Weekend was incidental, non-waterfowl find along the way, an Iceland Gull at Jacob Riis Park. They found twenty-four species of ducks, geese, and swans, not bad for a half-day. He’d share a photo but his computer has died leaving him with a camera full of images and nothing to download them to. How about you?
First was an awesome stay in Iceland. Between finishing one graduate program and beginning another, he embarked on a whirlwind tour of Europe. Of course, birding was on the itinerary! Next came a stop in Russia.
These birds all breed in Iceland My visit to Brancaster concluded with a magnificent fly-over of Pinkfeet as skein after skein passed high overhead, all heading west. The geese feed on the unwanted tops of the sugar beet that are left in the fields when the beet is harvested, a clean-up service that the farmers are happy with.
The same massive gull flock that would bring tears of joy to the eyes of some birders (indeed, this flock contained both Iceland and Slaty-backed Gulls ) strikes fear into the hearts of others. Abbott’s Lagoon, Point Reyes National Seashore, CA. Some flocks are not for everyone. Fort Baker, Sausalito, CA.
Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. Most of the Icelandic population winters in the British isles The sightings stopped, but then on 18 February 2019 EY70 137 was observed on Lady’s Island Lake, Wexford, Ireland.
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