Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
human habitations; escaped
rabbits
have recently established themselves around
Reykjavík and on Heimaey, however.
Minks
have also broken out of fur farms and seem
to be surviving in the wild, much to the detriment of native birdlife.
Offshore, Iceland has a number of
whale
species. Traditionally, their valuable meat,
bones and teeth were most frequently obtained from washed-up corpses, and - as
described in
Eyrbyggja Saga
(see p.337) - battles were even fought over the rights to
their carcasses.
Commercial whaling
began in the nineteenth century, and resumed after
a fifteen-year-long moratorium ended in 2003, though numbers remain high and
you've a good chance of seeing some if you put to sea. Most common are a couple of
species of
dolphin
and the five-metre-long
pilot whale
, but there are also substantial
numbers of far larger
fin whales
,
sei whales
and
minke whales
, all of which feed by
straining plankton from sea water through moustache-like baleen plates inside their
mouths. Far less common are
orca
(also known as killer whales), square-headed
sperm
whales
, and
blue whales
, which reach 30m in length and are the largest known animal
ever to have lived.
Grey and harbour
seals
are found in Iceland, with the biggest numbers seen around
the north coast and off the Westman Islands. Both seal species are also hunted, despite
being depicted as almost human in Icelandic folktales, appearing as “were-seals” who
have human families on land and seal families in the sea. According to these stories, if
you walk along a beach and find a seal following you out from shore, it may be looking
to see if you're one of its children.
Birds
Iceland has some three hundred recorded bird species, of which around eighty breed
regularly. The
gyrfalcon
, a large bird of prey with variable grey-white plumage, is a
national icon, once appearing on the Icelandic coat of arms and exported for hunting
purposes until the nineteenth century. They're not common, but occur throughout
mountainous country; rather oddly, in folklore the gyrfalcon is said to be brother to
the ptarmigan, its main source of food. Another spectacular bird of prey is the huge
white-tailed sea eagle
, whose numbers have recently rebounded following a low
point in the 1980s, when birds took poison baits intended for escaped minks.
Around forty pairs breed annually in the West Fjords, though juveniles travel quite
widely over the country.
he
ptarmigan
is a plump game bird, plentiful across Iceland wherever there is low
scrub or trees. They're well camouflaged, patterned a mottled brown to blend with
summer vegetation, and changing - with the exception of black tail feathers and a red
wattle around the eye - to snow-white plumage in winter. Aside from being preyed
upon year-round by foxes and gyrfalcons, ptarmigan are also a traditional Christmas
food, eaten instead of turkey. Their population goes through boom-and-bust cycles,
and in bad years Christmas ptarmigan have to be brought in from Scotland, allowing
Icelanders to bemoan the flavour of imported birds.
Other common heathland birds include the
golden plover
, a migrant whose
mournful piping is eagerly awaited in Iceland as the harbinger of summer; long-legged
redshank
and
godwit
; and
snipe
, identified by their long beaks, zigzag flight, and
strange “buzzing” noise made by two stiffened tail feathers which protrude at right
angles to its body.
In fields and estuaries you'll see
pink-footed geese
, the most
common of Iceland's wildfowl species, with
whooper swans
resident even in downtown
Reykjavík. Similarly widespread are
raven
, held by some Icelanders to be highly
intelligent, though often associated in tales with portents of doom. Norse mythology
describes Óðinn as having two ravens called Huginn (the Thinker) and Muninn (the
Rememberer), who report to him on the state of the world; and folklore holds that the
congregations of ravens commonly seen in autumn are dividing up Iceland's farms
between them, so that each pair will have a home over winter.
