Queen of the North

Equinox has now been and gone and the weather's decided to turn cold, with a touch of snow and skin-peeling winds today and yesterday. Well it is Iceland after all. Last weekend's conditions were completely different, no snow, no wind (a local rarity) and thick fog. I was surprised when YK phoned me around 9:30 on Saturday and suggested that we go birding. Surprised because a) YK was up at such an early hour and b) that he suggested we go birding at all when we could hardly see across the road because of the fog. What was the Frenchman expecting to see? But as is often the case it was an inspired decision. The fog cleared before we reached the south coast gull magnet of Grindavík and we headed to the harbour. I remarked to YK just as we were pulling up that although I've seen seen dozens of drake King Eiders over the years, I have only ever seen one female. And what was the first bird I saw as I lifted my binoculars seconds later? Yes, a female King Eider Somateria spectabilis, or Queen Eider as they are logically called in Iceland. They really are distinctive close up, with that "smile." After years of my not seeing one YK made it two birds in two minutes as another Queen was located in the raft of Common Eider Somateria mollissima. Sharing the harbour with the raft was the usual March orgy of gulls, which in Iceland means numerous Iceland Gulls Larus glaucoides, Glaucous Gulls Larus hyperboreus, Great Black-backed Gulls Larus marinus, Herring Gulls Larus argentatus, Black-headed Gulls Larus ridibundus, and a few Common Gulls Larus canus and my first couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls Larus fuscus of the year, and Kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla. Fulmars Fulmarus glacialis were also much in evidence and good numbers of Common Redshank Tringa totanus suggests that they are arriving on migration. When all the birds in the harbour suddenly scattered it was a pretty sure sign that a certain bird was around, and there it was, a juvenile Gyr Falcon Falco rusticolus flying over, not making any attempt to interfere with the panicking birds but I'm sure secretly enjoying the effect it was having. Leaving Grindavík we came across two pairs of Ravens Corvus corax displaying energetically. Ravens are extremely common and familiar winter birds around Reykjavík, I see many every day and in winter I don't think it's possible to look up in the air for more than 30 seconds without either Huginn or Muninn flying by. Consequently you tend not to pay too much attention to them but Ravens are surely amongst the most charismatic and entertaining birds to watch, and we spent a good 15 minutes watching them swagger and bounce along the side of the road with billowing trousers, puff out their throat feathers, one of them even raising erectile feathers above its eyes, something neither of us had ever noticed before, and generally try to impress or intimidate each other. The strutting and the bounding games of chase were all accompanied by that wonderful KRUNK KRUNK and series of clicks and gruff sounds. All in all a wonderful privilege to observe close at hand and a reminder not to ignore the common birds. Also in the area were three separate heaps of white feathers, clearly sites visited recently by Gyr Falcons and hapless gulls.
The next stop was Sandgerði, not one of the most beautiful places in Iceland (to put it mildly) but a site which almost always has plenty of birds and Saturday was no exception, with the usual seething mass of gulls. Very soon after setting up his scope YK called me over to look at a bird which had immediately caught his eye. It must be said at this point that YK has a very good eye and is a committed gull enthusiast. I had a look but the visibility was poor due to swirling mist. YK crawled much closer and in between bouts of thick fog and relative clarity he managed to get shots of the bird which did indeed appear to be a first-winter American Herring Gull Larus smithsonianus. This bird would have been a new species for me but I couldn't really count it on the views I had, so we went away hoping the fog would lift. On returning about 30 minutes later things were slightly better and I immediately saw a coffee-coloured Herring Gull and I asked YK "why isn't that an American Herring Gull?" and fully expected YK to tell me why it wasn't one. But in fact here indeed was a second American Herring Gull and I was able to look at its ID features much better than the first bird. It was much more distinctive than I expected and could easily be picked out on colour with the naked eye from the surrounding Herring Gulls. My first lifer in Iceland this year and although it was no Albert's Lyrebird, it was far less dull than I had imagined it would be, certainly more of a thrill than, say, Green-winged Teal, Spotless Starling and Pied Oystercatcher of Australia.
On Sunday I went to Sandgerði again in better weather with SÁ and met YK, GÞH and GP who were searching in vain for the American Herring Gulls. Perhaps yesterday's fog had brought them in and once it had cleared they went on their way again. The highlight of Sunday's visit though was unquestionably seeing a juvenile Gyr Falcon Falco rusticolus scatter every bird on the beach right in front of us and emerge from the melee clutching a Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus in its talons. Although I've seen Gyrs hunting countless times and have seen them with prey, I've never seen one make a kill before. It killed the gull instantly and then made a laboured flight to a seaweed strewn rock and plucked and ate the bird. A great experience for me, less so for the gull. I've seen Gyrs regularly this winter around Reykjavík, and March is a pretty reliable time to see them around here. YK and GÞH then found six drake King Eiders Somateria spectabilis at nearby Garðskagi in a truly massive raft of Common Eider Somateria mollissima (numbering many thousands). SÁ and I failed to find them as the raft was by now a very long way off shore but there were plenty of Northern Gannets Morus bassanus around and we had good views of 15-20 White-beaked Dolphins Lagenorhynchus albirostris jumping clear of the water. My first Icelandic mammal of the year! .