Day 4 Raufarhofn and surrounding tundra
Day 4
Not an early start again as the weather was crap. Low cloud and pretty nippy. This was the view from my window before setting off for the day. Pretty standard for Iceland. Think the average temperature in Raufarhofn is 2c. So you have to layer up.
View from the room, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
We headed back out onto the tundra to have a look for our main target Purple Sandpipers again and for any other species that might turn up. First up was a Road side Arctic tern colony we noticed as we drove by. Here we found several nests.
Arctic Tern, Iceland, June 2022
We then saw a pair of Arctic Skua as we drove along the gravel track. So we stopped and edged over to them. Skua’s seems to like the little mounds that pop up all around the tundra. Apparently they have been studied and proved to be a build of bird poop over many years. A lot of other birds use them as well. Especially the Ptarmigan. These birds were definitely loyal to this area and probably holding territory but no evidence of breeding was found. The Skua weren’t very cooperative to my lens and flew a short distance away. As to not disturb we left them to it. We walked across the tundra towards a lake that we could see on the map. We had a couple of male Snow Buntings singing around us. Also in the area were Golden Plover and Whimbrel all on territory but no breeding evidence found. A Great-northern Diver was seen distantly on the lake. I stopped to photograph the Snow Bunting whilst Adrian and Ricky had a look around.
Snow Bunting, Iceland, June 2022
Whilst having a thrash around Ricky put up a Dunlin. A new nest for this trip. It was a C3. We marked it up on what3words so we could check it again in the hope it would become a complete set. The Dunlin didn’t move off to far and posed nicely on a neighbouring rock I fired off a few shots before we retreated and watch it back. It sat tightly and we moved off.
Dunlin nest, Iceland, June 2022
Dunlin, Rafarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
We had a good look around and found no sign of any Purple Sandpipers. We got back in the car and headed further north. We come across another roadside Arctic Tern colony and found our only c3 of the trip. Most tern colonies had good numbers of nests in, with most being c2 with a few c1 amongst them. Aside from Eider this was the most common breeding birds we had found so far.
Arctic Tern nest, Iceland, June 2022
It was literally right on the road any closer and you would probably run over it. As you can see from the video below. It wasn’t the only nest we found beside the road. More on that later.
Arctic Tern nest, Iceland, June 2022
The road here also had 100s of waders feeding along it. Ringed Plover, Dunlins, and Sanderlings. It was great to watch them in some pretty large flocks flying along the road. The Arctic Terns were also posing nicely on the fence along here.
Arctic Tern, Raufarhofhn, Iceland, June 2022
It was approaching midday and the plan was to spilt up. Adrian was going to try another area of the Tundra and Ricky and I were going to head to the beach where we had seen a few waders earlier in the day. There is a lovely hide here which seems really random as it’s in the middle of nowhere. It was built by Biotope a Norwegian architecture company who have built numerous hides across Iceland. Check out their twitter bio they are well worth a follow. Was good to just get out the biting wind for a bit.
Bird Hide, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
We checked out the pools and sea on the incoming tide. Looked great for Red Phalaropes but sadly just the Red-necked Phalaropes were seen. Not sure why I say sadly as they are still a cracking bird.
Greenland Sea, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
Greenland Sea, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
We headed to the beach, Ricky went in one direction and I headed further down the beach. There were some cracking looking waders here. Summer plumage Sanderling and Turnstone en route to their breeding grounds in Greenland. Sadly no Knot here this time, we had seen one on an earlier pass. Knot in breeding plumage was a target for me as they look stunning in their brick red summer bib. I have only seen them in the winter plumage. The weather was getting worse so I headed to the beach in full wet weather gear. This also enabled me to get low to the ground on the Sandy shore. I think being at eye level with birds makes a photograph so much more appealing. It’s also an amazing experience as the Sanderling would walk right up to me and past my lens more often than not becoming to close to focus on. You could hear them chatting away to each other picking up food along the incoming tide. Was amazing to be part of their world.
Sanderling, Iceland, June 2022.
Whilst lead in the beach I noted a Black Guillemot still in winter plumage on the water and a flyby Cormorant. There was also a couple of Ringed Plover running up and down the beach. Oh for some nice light.
Ringed Plover, Iceland, June 2022.
As the tide came up and our memory cards filled up we decided to call time as the light wasn’t getting any better. We walked a long the top of the beach and saw a couple of Oystercatchers one of which was coloured ringed. Whilst here i caught site of a small dumpy wader. Boom a Purple Sandpiper the bird we were here to see. We watched it for a little while as it feed along the rocks. At least we knew they were here now.
We headed back towards Adrian checking out another area of Tundra that looked good. We found a fair few Eiders nests again. Many still hadn’t been marked up by the Eider down farmers. We also saw a few seals out in the Greenland sea. Sadly we had no sign of any Purple Sandpipers though. We also checked any suitable areas for Red Phalarope. We joined up with Adrian who had, had some success and had seen numerous Purple Sandpipers. He had watched them joy flighting and displaying to each other. This filled me with confidence about getting some good pictures. He also had seen one individual nest scraping. We took a What3words location so we could maybe check it out again if time aloud. We also knew a couple of others coming to the same area soon so they would be able to check it out for us.
Purple Sandpiper nest scrape, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
After a hard day in the field we headed back to our digs and bumped into Jose one of the scientists staying at the Nest. He was part of a team studying bloods of Waders in Iceland. They were finding nesting birds and then capturing them. They would then take a blood sample and document the birds statistics. I believe they were ringing the birds as well. It was fascinating stuff. They were pleased to tell us that they had found nesting Golden Plover, Ringed Plover and a Purple Sandpiper. Now we were interested they had what we were looking for. We weren’t to early as we had feared. They were happy to share the location and we exchanged details. We also passed onto them the location of the Dunlin and would share any other nests we found. The plan was to have some tea again at the other hotel in town and the only place to eat and then head out again. Conversation over tea was all about how excited we were to get back out on the tundra. Tea was amazing again and the views over the harbour were nice. Saw numerous birds from the window including GN Diver, Fulmar, RB merganser, Glaucous Gull and of course Eider Duck. This was effectively our last night in Raufarhofn but we felt it still had more to give and our hopes had been raised with Adrian finding the scrape and Jose telling us of his nesting Purple Sandpiper. We were looking forward to seeing this first hand but finding one ourselves was what we wanted. We agreed to stay another night at the Nest. We had no accommodation planned for the next two nights anyway. We had planned it this way in case we needed extra time. We also booked at the restaurant again as it was so good.
Raufarhofn Harbour, Iceland, June 2022
Another top meal from the Hotel Nordurljos, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
As we headed out the hotel we saw something in the distance as we moved closer we could see it was a bloody Gyr Falcon and it had prey. Boom a Gyr plucking a Ptarmigan!!! Shame they were stuffed
Gyr Falcon and Ptarmigan taxidermy
First stop after tea was the Golden Plover nest that Jose had given us the location of it was only a few 100 meters from the restaurant and on the edge of town. It was a beautiful c4. They had set a camera up on this nest as well so they could collect as much data as possible.
Golden Plover nest, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
Golden Plover, Raufarhofn, June 2022
Next stop was just up the road and still within the boundaries of the village of Raufarhofn. It was another site that Jose had given us and was a Ringed Plover c4.
Ringed Plover, Raufarhofn, June 2022
We had saved the best till last, the coordinates for the Purple Sandpiper were a few miles out of town. We headed out and it turned out to be in an area we had looked around already. Except we hadn’t really checked the area right next to the road. This nest was apparently right next to the road. We arrived and parked safely a few 100 yards from the location and we walked up towards the given location. Nothing came up we carefully retraced our steps numerous times and nothing. I have heard they are hard to find but surely if we have the location it can’t be that hard. As we were searching Jose and co drove past and it turns out we were about 1/4 of mile short of where we should of been. The incubating bird had already left the nest when we arrived and was trying to draw us away from the nest. We had a quick look at the prize and took some photos before heading off. What a great start now all we had to do was find our own.
Adrian photographing his first Purple Sandpipers nest, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
We dropped Ricky back off at the hotel and headed to the port I wanted to try and photograph the Glaucous Gulls in the harbour. There were about 5 juvenile birds around but no adults. When you get up close to them you realise how big they are. Not bad for about 11pm.
Glaucous Gull, Raufarhofn Harbour, Iceland, June 2022
Final stop of the night was to the Arctic Henge on the outskirts of Raufarhofn. I am pretty sure it was put here just to bring in the tourists. When I first heard about it I thought it was some ancient set of stones but turns out iits was an idea from 1998. It’s meant to be a huge sundial aiming to capture the sunrays, cast shadows in precise locations and capture the light between aligned gateways. Now this might be true but even in the land of the midnight sun, we hadn’t seen the sun or any of its rays since we left Myvatn. Still it was quite impressive and very stranger at the same time. What was also nice was the Ptarmigan sat on one of the entrances, the singing Redwings and drumming snipe all in good numbers at this location.
Arctic Henge, Raufarhofn, Iceland, June 2022
There were plenty of Redwings about so I made it an aim to find at least one nest. It didn’t take long. This one had a couple ofvery young chicks in it.
Redwing nest, Arctic Henge, Iceland, June 2022
One bird posed nice on some pipes that were in the car park. These pictures were taken at 00.11am probably the latest and earliest I had taken pictures of a bird in daylight. In a few days time the sun wouldn’t set for a few weeks here.
Redwing, Arctic Henge, Iceland, June 2022
