Tag: photo

Waterfalls Report

Iceland has a few waterfalls.

And we stopped for many more gorgeous cascades than I could photograph. I was chasing cliff-nesting seabirds at Seljalandsfoss, for instance. But I did get my camera out for a few of them.

Gullfoss (the gull means “golden,” like the local beer, but I never got an explanation of why the name applies to these falls) is the mystery waterfall, as the water appears to disappear into a crack in the earth. Once you look back, you can see where it’s gone to.

Fossá (“waterfall-river”) in the East Fjords region might be my favorite. It’s small, not spectacular, but it does what a waterfall needs to do. According to an interpretive sign at the site, the average flow is 8 m³/sec, but in spate the flow can exceed 150 m³/sec, and a peak in 1980 was measured at 395 m³/sec. A 30 kW power plant takes off some of the river’s energy.

Dettifoss, in the north, is nicknamed “the beast.” This one feels as powerful as Niagara.

At right is Jökulsá á Fjöllum, the outflow from Dettifoss. The river continuum model of stream ecology doesn’t really fit Icelandic rivers. There is very little vegetation along the banks to fall into the water, and thereby to feed shredders and other organisms. These cold-clean-rocky, often braided, streams are strange and quite beautiful.

“The beauty” to Dettifoss’s beast, so they say, is Goðafoss. I’ll buy that.

Mammals Report

On our first day of the bus tour, we stopped at Sólhestur farm for a short ride on the local breed of Icelandic horse. My ride, whose name I didn’t quite catch, patiently endured my clumsy mount and dismount. (I haven’t been on any kind of horse since summer camp as a kid, and I am sure that all equines compare notes on what I klutz I am in the saddle.) Only 3 of our busload of 14 opted for the ride, while almost all of us did the glacier. Hunh.

The farm is in the shadow of Ingólfsfjall. At left, you can see the no-barn solution to storing fodder for livestock: great bales of hay wrapped in plastic sheeting. At right, more horsey friends.

At the end of our three-quarter loop around the island country, we boarded the Hólmasól in Akureyri, to see some cetaceans. And perhaps some more glaciers, while we were at it.

Our guide turned up a small handful of Megaptera novaeangliae (Humpback Whale) in the fjord. It turns out that humpbacks can be individually identified by patterns on their backs and flukes. So, for instance, this whale has the nickname “speckled” (maybe “deckled”? audio quality on the boat was sub-optimal).

While this fellow, a particular favorite of our guide, can be distinguished by the hook in the dorsal fin.

Glacier Report

Sólheimajökull is a rather grungy glacier, as it scrapes off bits of the surrounding mountains on its way to the sea. Our guides impressed upon us how much this outlet glacier of Mýrdalsjökull had receded in the past century, in the past decade, in the past year, as a result of global heating. That thought followed us up and down the glacier, as the sounds of rushing meltwater on this sunny summer day were all around us.

Equipped with crampons and ice picks, we set off to climb a bit of it.

About halfway up our ascent of 200 meters, far in the distance we espied one of the other guides on his way down.

At the top of our climb, some of us did a “Viking push-up” to get a drink from a meltwater pool.

At left, looking farther up the glacier. At right, looking back down the valley. Time was, the ridge in the left part of the photo was an island in glacial ice, with another tongue of the glacier flowing around behind it. No more.

Gravelly snow and disappearing ice aside, this hike was the high point of my trip!

Later in the day, our bus stopped for a photo op with some more picturesque ice draped over Hvannadalshnúkur.

Birds Report: A Correction

A sharp-eyed iNaturalist community member correctly identified the birds on the wing in my photos as Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis). A closer reading of Sibley’s guide tells me that fulmars occur in light and dark forms, which accounts for the rather dark birds I saw at Reynisfjara. I’m still fairly certain that I also saw kittiwakes on this trip, but I don’t have the photos to go with.

I’m back from a week traveling in Iceland, most of my time spent on a 19-seater minibus making a three-quarter turn around the island from Reykjavík to Akureyri.

Birds Report

I’m pleased with the results from my birding, considering that our guide Elis made only a couple brief stops specifically to look at birds. Fourteen lifers and 28 species altogether. Just a few photographic records: Greylag Goose (Anser anser) and Whooper Swan (Cygnus cygnus) in Tjörnin hard by Reykjavík’s city hall, and Black-legged Kittiwake Northern Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialus), photographed at Skogafoss.

The photo opportunities for the kittiwakes were better later in the day at Reynisfjara, but I was looking at other things at the time, like my first Northern Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) nesting on the cliffs.

As we were hotelling nearby, I had the chance to bird the other side of the mountain the next morning. In glorious solitude. The sea stacks, Reynisdrangar, are rather birdy albeit distant.

Not a new bird for me, but I got excellent up close looks at Arctic Terns (Sterna paradisaea) perched up on the bergy bits in Jökulsárlón.

White Wagtails (Motacilla alba) seemed to be ubiquitous; I heard them in some quite inhospitable places.

Easiest life bird was a Common Blackbird (Turdus merula) outside my hotel room window in downtown Reykjavík. I worked hardest keying out Purple Sandpiper (Calidris maritimus) on the beach along Eiðsgrandi.