Puffins in Iceland

[nanila]

It has long been a dream of mine to see puffins in the flesh, so our Iceland trip included a puffin-watching jaunt in Reykjavik harbour. The puffins had given up on breeding on the islands in the harbour & were headed back out to sea, so we only got to see them on the water. They were pretty tough to photograph, being skittish and also quite small. Their take-off from water is less than graceful as it involves a lot of frantic flapping and their flying silhouette is rather chunky. But they were adorable to watch.

Comments

[nanila]

The tour guides told us that the puffins were leaving about a month early because they'd had such a bad breeding season. Normally they stick around until the last week in August, not the first!

[holyschist]

Dang! It wasn't the best breeding season when I went, either. :-/ I hope this isn't a consistent pattern.

[nanila]

I hope not too. The tour guide said that puffin breeding is always linked to fish availability, and the sprats that make up a big part of their diet were not abundant this year.