Written by Hrafn Svavarsson 

Ever since 1952 Icelandic ornithologists and birders have come together sometime between christmas and the first week of January to make the annual Winter Bird Count. Members of the Gavia Travel Team did their expected "duty" of course.  Even though the day is short and the birdlife is not very divers birding in good frosty weather on a snowy calm day can be very relaxing and recreative. This year I went with Yann Kolbeinsson and Ingvar A. Sigurðsson director of South-Iceland Institute of Natural History to our counting area in the far south near the Village of Kirkjubaejarklaustur.

The conditions were great! bright calm snowy day with temperature around 25 - 21°F (-4 to -6°C). Most of the lakes and rivers were frozen over making the waterfowl in the area staying together in big groups on openings in the ice and therefor making it much easier for us to count. In the very few hours of daylight we had we managed to go between all ten of our sites counting approx. 800 ducks and about 1100 birds in total. Though the day's list didn't count that many species our counting brought us a total of 12 duck species including both Barrow's and Common Goldeneyes. The Barrow's Goldeneyes are seen annually in the area and are considered to be owerwintering birds from the Lake Myvatn area. The Common Goldeneyes are also seen annually in the area and are thought to be overwintering birds from somewhere in Europe (a study waiting to be done!). Along with those Common Goldeneyes a single female Smew has accompanied them since atleast 2003 and this year made no exeption.  Other unusual species included one female Common Shelduck and a male Northern Shoveler. Both species have only started breeding in Iceland in the last couple of decades and are extremely rare during the wintertime when the breeding birds leave to Europe. Other rarities found during the day included one Drake American Wigeon among approx. 150 Eurasian Wigeons and 10 Grey Herons which are rarities in Iceland but can be found in every part of the country during the winter as probaly few hundreds overwinter here thought to be from Norway. In all this was a great day with some very nice birding. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures this year but I'm including few pictures from the Winter Bird Count last year.  

Species list: