Natural Wonders - Iceland - page 734

LITTLE NORTHERN BROTHERS
Cute, clumsy and endearingly comic, the puffin (Fratercula arctica,or lundias they're
called in Icelandic) is one of Iceland's best-loved birds. Although known for its frantic flut-
tering and crash landings, the bird is surprisingly graceful underwater and was once
thought to be a bird-fish hybrid.
The puffin is a member of the auk family and spends most of its year at sea. For four or
five months it comes to land to breed, generally keeping the same mate and burrow (a
multiroom apartment!) from year to year.
Until very recently, 60% of the world's puffins bred in Iceland, and you would see them
in huge numbers around the island from late May to August. However, over the last dec-
ade, the puffin stock has gone into a sudden, sharp decline in the south of Iceland. They
still visit the south, but in smaller numbers and with considerably less breeding success.
The reason is uncertain, but it's thought that warming ocean temperatures have caused
their main food, sand eels, to decline. It's also possible that hunting and egg collection
have had an unanticipated effect.
For twitchers, the good news is that puffins in the north seem unaffected (for now). The
photogenic birds continue to flitter around the cliffs of Grímsey and Drangey, as well as in
Borgarfjörður Eystri and the Westfjords.
Flowers & Fungi
Although ostensibly barren in places, the vegetation in Iceland is surprisingly varied - you
just need to get close to see it. Most vegetation is low growing, staying close to the ground
and spreading as much as possible to get a better grip on the easily eroded soil. Even the
trees, where there are any, are stunted. As the old joke goes, if you're lost in an Icelandic
forest, just stand up.
If you're visiting in summer, you'll be treated to incredible displays of wildflowers
blooming right across the country. Most of Iceland's 450 flowering plants are introduced
species - especially the ubiquitous purple lupin, once an environmental help, now a
hindrance. A nationwide poll was held in 2004 to choose a national flower. The mountain
avens (Dryas octopetala), known as holtasóley (heath buttercup) in Icelandic, was the
worthy winner. Look out for it on gravel stretches and rocky outcrops - its flowers are