![]() I really hope you will be able to see those marvellous birds while travelling. They love to build their nests in rocky cliffs so therefore you can most likely meet them at Látrabjarg in the Westfjords, Dyrhólaey on the south coast, Ingólfshöfði, the Westman islands of course and a few other places around Iceland. I shot these two cuties at Dyrhólaey a short while ago and for your information it was a puffin party for sure. As you can hear puffins are not only cute, but also quite smart. They are not only good swimmers but can also flap their wings very fast up to 400 times pr minute and can reach speeds of 80 km an hour. Their favourite food is probably herring and sand eels. Also they are great divers and can dive up to 60 metres. They are excellent swimmers using their wings to stroke underwater. Puffins are sea-birds and use the waves for resting when not swimming. To find puffin tours in Iceland go here: Puffin & whale watching tours. Pretty amazing and probably to attract potential mates. The beak fades to gray during the winter but blooms into orange colour in the spring time. What makes them special is the penguin like colour with a very colourful beak. There are more than one puffin species but the one that breeds in Iceland is the so called Atlantic Puffin. Puffins can be seen in Iceland from early April until September each year. Iceland is one of those colonies because in spring time they come over here for nesting and Iceland is the breeding home for about 60 percent of the world's Atlantic puffins. And I’m ready for that.Įnter your email address to follow our blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.Did you know that Atlantic puffins spend most of their lives at sea, but return to land to form breeding colonies during spring and summer? Each and every bird that arrives, unseen as they might be, helps peel back the icy fingers of winter. Spring has sprung, despite the lingering snow and yo-yo temperatures. Not to be outdone, Fox Sparrows come in on the same winds and belt out their ethereal tunes. American Robins, the first harbinger of spring that most people will notice, arrive in the first week of April to show off their bright red breasts and spring melodies. Common & Thick-billed Murres start rallying for their precious few inches of personal space on the steep breeding cliffs, while Atlantic Puffins begin spring repairs on their family burrows. ![]() Northern Gannets head north from more temperate waters in early April, catching their first glimpse of Newfoundland in more than five months. Horned Larks can often be found on coastal headlands and kelpy beaches, waiting for the last patches of snow to disappear on the grassy barrens. Black-legged Kittiwakes and Ring-billed Gulls begin returning to our coast in late March, looking fresh and bright after a long winter abroad. And this year has been no exception!īut to birders, signs of spring start popping up long before the promise of warm weather. April can be like purgatory here on the island – somewhere in between two battling seasons, deceptively mild and promising one minute and bitter cold the next. It fights and claws its way back, while winter works like the dickens to maintain its icy grip. To most people, spring doesn’t simply “arrive” in Newfoundland. We explored coastal islands and towering cliffs, boreal forests, wide-open tundra, wetlands, and even a desolate chunk of the earth’s mantle during our adventure! We ended up observing 108 species of birds, lots of other wildlife and interesting wildflowers, enjoying awesome scenery and having loads of fun! John’s on June 22 and took us to birding hot spots, incredible vistas, and some of my own (often less traveled) favourite places across the island – culminating with a few days in the stunning Gros Morne National Park. (Check out these blog posts about other adventures that Jody and I have led together: New Brunswick 2013 Hawaii 2014 and Trinidad & Tobago 2015). We’ve shared adventures while guiding tours together in some pretty amazing places, but being able to show him the incredible birds, wildlife and scenery of my home was just as special. Adding to the fun, I was joined by my good friend, top-notch birding guide and Bird Studies Canada biologist/educator Jody Allair. This was a brand new, cross-island tour that I helped develop from the ground up, so I was even more excited than usual to welcome guests for this adventure. A huge highlight on my calendar was the “Grand Newfoundland” tour with Eagle-Eye Tours ( a great Canadian tour company that runs bird and nature tours all over the world – check them out! I’m scheduled to lead three tours in Newfoundland, New Brunswick and Trinidad & Tobago with them in 2017.) It’s been a very busy summer, and I’m finally getting around to sorting through my photos and memories of all the great adventures I shared with people from all over.
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