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An Icelandic Birding Diary
by
EBR
This
diary feature is designed to complement the latest bird news section,
and it may occasionally be entertaining although I make no promises.
After having updated the Iceland Birding website every day for more
than a year I came to realise that the birds entered under the "Rare
Bird News" section in no way reflected the birding Iceland experience,
and I began to wonder whether I should launch yet another birding
blog. The final straw came a couple of weeks ago when birding in
SW Iceland with three others. We stopped to watch a juvenile Gyr
Falcon sitting very close to the car. Suddenly one of my colleagues
spotted a Eurasian Curlew behind it and shouted, "Hey, look a Curlew!"
Immediately all Icelandic eyes were turned to the Curlew, a scarce
bird in Iceland, far rarer than a common and garden Gyr Falcon.
I can't imagine many other places where the locals would drop a
Gyr Falcon like a hot potato for a Curlew. But later that evening
I was duty bound to enter the Curlew in the rare bird news, whilst
making no mention of a close encounter with the world's largest
falcon. So I'm keeping this diary to give a more complete picture
of what birding's like season by season at this edge of Europe. -
September 2009 |
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