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Birding Iceland on the Fly

10,000 Birds

Being technically outside the summer tourism season, one can enjoy the somewhat less expensive travel and hotel costs, less crowded venues, great weather and nearly endless daylight—and of course many birds migrating and beginning the breeding/nesting season! In fact I don’t think the sun ever set while we were in Iceland.

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Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides

10,000 Birds

Iceland Gulls do not breed in Iceland. But if one detaches “Ice&# from “land&# and puts a hyphen between the two the name seems much more fitting, because while they do not breed in Iceland they are usually seen when the land is covered in ice. … a.

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Common Ringed Plover

10,000 Birds

Very occasionally though, one might stray down the eastern seaboard of the USA, but for the most part, those that breed in arctic Canada migrate towards Europe and swell numbers there during the winter. The Common Ringed Plover’s two-toned call is lower and less sophisticated than the Semi-palmated’s.

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Whooper Swans at Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido

10,000 Birds

Other researchers apparently tried to get their universities to fund their drone toys, resulting in papers with titles such as “The use of drones to study the breeding productivity of Whooper Swan “ Another finding does not come as a surprise to birders watching birds both from cars and on foot.

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Don’t Ignore the Barnacles – they’re Real Birds

10,000 Birds

The European Breeding Bird Atlas 2 makes interesting reading. Originally confined to the Arctic, breeding [of Barnacle Geese] is now confirmed throughout much of the Baltic coast S North Sea. A pair did lay infertile eggs in Iceland in 2018, but that’s about the only record I can find).

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What the rings reveal

10,000 Birds

Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper red plumage than their limosa cousins. One assumes Iceland, but there’s no proof. Black-tailed Godwits on the move.

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As the tide falls: an hour at Brancaster Staithe

10,000 Birds

Though these plovers are common on the North Norfolk coast, their nearest breeding grounds are far to the north. A few do breed in Europe, on the extreme north-east of European Russia. Today many thousands spend much of their year there, arriving in September and not departing for their breeding grounds in arctic Russia until late May.

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