
September
has come and gone, and the real rarity month is upon us. Eleven of
the thirteen species of American passerine I’ve seen in Iceland
have come in October, so it’s perhaps strange that on the first
Sunday in October I found myself 1,000 metres up on the lava scarred
flanks of a volcano, sixty miles from the sea, not a likely place
to find a vireo or a warbler. Or perhaps it’s not too strange.
Since the flurry of activity in mid-September the weather has generally
been too good for birding in Iceland, by which I mean we’ve
been in the doldrums with no winds bringing any birds to these shores,
day after day of clear mild weather which has had people talking of
an Indian summer, but left birders looking at the weather maps and
wondering when the next storm is going to hit. It’s therefore
been “safe” to do normal things like go to the summerhouse
with the family or climb mountains.
On the first Sunday in October I drove north-east of Reykjavik with
fellow Cheshire exile AKM to the barren lands north of the Þingvellir
National Park. As the road turns north of the park headquarters the
traffic thins out (i.e. is non-existent) and the increasinly bumpy
route winds through an extensive area of brilliantly coloured red,
orange and russet birch scrub (the Icelandic New England in October)
before the shrubs abruptly disappear and the expansive lava plains
take over. Our aim was to walk up the extinct volcano, Skjaldbreiður.
Its name means broadshield as it is said to resemble an upturned shield
and it indeed gave its name to the geological term shield volcano.
The clear nights inland are beginning to get cold and when we stopped
by a river to get water for the walk there was a wafer thin layer
of ice on the river. The walk up Skjaldbreiður is incredibly easy,
a 5-10° slope of smooth lava and sand, interspersed with curious
serpentine protrusions of rock winding their way uphill. You could
easily convince yourself sometimes that you are looking down from
an aircraft at a parched mountain range in Chad or Western Australia,
until a spider crawling across a patch of brilliant green moss reminds
you of the true scale. After a very easy 4 km we arrived at the 1,060
metre high summit and the anticipation of seeing the 300 metre wide
ice-filled crater made me rush the last few metres and actually work
up a sweat. I was just about to remark to AKM that apart from a flock
of Golden Plovers miles back down the valley and
a pair of Whooper Swans on a roadside lake that it
was a birdless area, at least in October, when suddenly a familiar
voice was heard and there on the rim of the crater was a beautiful
male Snow Bunting, blowing like a piece of litter
over the abyss, turning, circling and then heading over the far wall
to disappear from sight. It’s amazing how a simple sighting
of a common bird can set the spirits soaring in such a setting: warm
sunshine, the view dominated by three massive glaciers and associated
nunataks to the immediate north and a tenacious bird thriving in such
an apparently hostile environment. There was more life at the summit,
a very familiar CRUNK announced the arrival of a pair of
Ravens and as we were negotiating a tricky section
round the edge of crater, an explosion of white and a whirr of wings
was a Ptarmigan. It was a very tame bird and we edged
to within a few feet of it, as it sat perfectly camouflaged in the
lava, but its apparent ambivalence to our presence could prove its
undoing once the hunting season arrives. Such, if you'll excuse the
expression, intimate moments with birds really make a good walk a
great day out.

Whatever birding I have done in recent weeks has been on the south-west
peninsula of Suðurnes, one of the most productive areas in Iceland
for birds, but perhaps its least inspiring corner in terms of scenery.
The general tactic is to walk along the beach in the hope of finding
something, and we split up and each take a three hour section of coast.
On the penultimate weekend in September there were plenty of birds
around, Meadow Pipits galore, good numbers of Wheatears,
a surprising number of White Wagtails still around
and plenty of the usual wader suspects: Redshank, Oystercatcher,
Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Golden Plover
and Turnstone. Masses of gulls at Garður, 90
Pink-footed Geese, 4 Barnacle Geese
and an adult Gyr Falcon proved very unsettling for
gulls of all sizes. Just as I was finishing my three-hour section
SÁ rang me with the word Bingo! as he had found an Iceland
tick for him and me, and when I reached him there was a Common
Kestrel hovering over the fields, a long overdue bird for
both of us. Since then I’ve been back to the same area twice
and whilst the complete lack of suitable winds has made the chances
of finding vagrants very slim, it’s been fascinating to notice
the difference in numbers of Icelandic birds from week to week. The
abundant Meadow Pipits had been reduced to four yesterday,
Wheatears and White Wagtails had
gone completely, Ringed Plovers and Dunlin
down to single figures. But one bird, Iceland Gull,
is increasing by the day with over 30 adults in Sandgerði yesterday.
I just hope that their mass arrival from Greenland and Canada over
the next few weeks is held up by prolonged spells of southerlies.

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