 |
| Great Northern Diver |
 |
| Slavonian Grebe |
 |
| Godafoss |
We drove down to the lake stopping at the famous River Laxa road bridge where we soon located both Harlequin duck and Barrow's Goldeneye, all females with Long-tailed Ducks and Scaup.
 |
| Harlequin |
 |
| Barrow's Goldeneye |
The male Harlequin leave the river at the end of June and winter on the coast. We soon found the male Barrow's Goldeneye on Myvatn lake with Tufted Ducks and a few Common Scoter, Shoveler, Pintail and Gadwall.
 |
| Lake Myvatn - quite a few flies visible in this picture but we had no problem with them |
 |
| Barrow's Goldeneye |
We returned to the Fossholl Guesthouse and I spent some time photographing the Golden Plover and Black-tailed Godwits which were happy to feed on the hotels lawn.
 |
| Golden Plover |
 |
| Black-tailed Godwit |
One of our target birds, and I'm sure every other visiting birders, was the Gyr Falcon. We scanned the tops of every raised mound round the lake without success but finally, and with some relief, located a pale adult on a rather distant cliff face. Too distant for photography but it was a decent telescope view of this enigmatic falcon.
 |
| Gyr Falcon |
It flew around briefly and we saw the same bird a couple of days later. Typically another birding couple from Denmark had seen it perched by the road!
There are very few passerines on Iceland; Redwing and Meadow Pipit were most in evidence with the occasional Blackbird but we visited the small woodland at Hafn, I think its called Kalftastrond Park, just south of Dimmuborgir and we saw several Mealy Redpoll and heard the Icelandic race of Wren.
 |
| Mealy Redpoll |
From Myvatn we headed up to Husavik, crossing the almost desert like landscape which has been seeded with lupins as the first stage in a land reclamation process.
 |
| Alaskan Lupins on the road to Husavik |
 |
| Iceland Gull -1st summer |
It was very overcast now with some mist over the sea and we were advised to wear the provided overalls against cooler temperatures. Fortunately the wind had dropped a bit but there was still a fair swell on the sea.
We had brief views of a Minke Whale as we headed out but it wasn't long before a larger whale was sighted. This proved to be the largest, a Blue Whale and a new animal for me but Roger has seen them off Sri Lanka.
 |
| Blue Whale |
There are not too many places you can go with a reasonable chance of seeing Blue Whale so we were both very happy. It came up four or 5 times, each time breaking the surface typically three times before diving again. It has been seen several times in the bay since June but there were gaps in the sightings so we were lucky to see it. On the photo there is something breaking the skin which I can only assume is a satellite tracking device but couldn't find anything out about this.
 |
| Blue Whale - tracking device? |
We also encountered three Humpback Whales in the bay and another Minke so it was a very worthwhile trip. Other than Puffins, Arctic Terns and Kittiwakes the only birds of note were a couple of Bonxie.
 |
| Humpback Whale |
 |
| Rock Ptarmigan |
We headed back to Myvatn where we had managed to find accommodation at the Hlid campsite in Reykjahlid. We were in a small hut, similar to those you might put in the garden as a summer house. It was a great location though with plenty of Whimbrel and Golden Plover around the site.
 |
| Whimbrel |
 |
| Myvatn thermal springs |
 |
| Pink-footed Goose |
Again there were pairs of Red-necked Phalaropes on the roadside pools and Whooper Swan but not much else, we didn't manage to find Snow Bunting but this looked like a likely area.
Our trip was just about over so after another stop at the Laxa River we headed back to Blonduos, only one Great Northern Diver on the lake now but this one was calling which was a real treat. Another Arctic Skua took a Redwing and swallowed it whole, this must be one of their favoured prey I suspect.
As we left Blonduos on our final day heading towards Keflavik we had only driven about 10km when we saw something on the road ahead, just missed by an oncoming car - it was an Arctic Fox.
 |
| Arctic Fox |
What a treat on our last full day in Iceland and another new mammal for me. We had thought there was a chance of seeing one on the Snaefellsnes Peninsula but it was a complete surprise to see one here and get good views.
We made a couple more stops on the way and added a micro moth to the trip list, we saw no Butterflies and just one species of moth that was quite common which looked similar to Common Heath but I've yet to identify either species.
 |
| Micro moth - is it a Pyralid? |
A final visit to the Gardour lighthouse area added Turnstone and Knot to our list and we saw more Manx Shearwaters most looking like brown backed juveniles.
We stayed at the Airport Inn which has to be pre-paid as there is no manned reception. A rather unattractive location but the hotel was good and very close to the airport.
What a great trip with fantastic views of some superb birds.
As a footnote we saw no full sized football pitches, just a few 5 aside bits of grass and it's difficult to see where a team would come from but that's just one of the surprises that is Iceland.
Thanks to Roger for being such good company and 'tak' to the good folk of Iceland with my only word of Icelandic picked up from the TV series Trapped and Fortitude.
