Iceland

A very sensible midday flight had us landing in Keflavik at around 3.30pm. Collecting our luggage, we changed some money and were picked up and taken across the parking area to the Thrifty offices where we picked up our 9 seater van. We were out of the car park in about an hour, which seemed fairly efficient. The road out of Keflavik introduced us to some of the amazing scenery.











Our aim was to head straight to the Poll garden centre for the Lincoln Sparrow that had been there since December. Following the excellent directions on the Birding Iceland website we were soon chatting with the man and peering at the feeders. There were lots of Snowbuntings twittering around, Blackbirds and Redwings came and went and several Redpoll also visited the feeders. A Goldcrest picked about among the evergreens and Ravens cronked overhead.
About 3/4 of an hour later Martin picked up,something on the ground which proved to be the sparrow and everyone except me managed to get a view of it.












It then disappeared into an evergreen and we made our way across the island to our hostel accommodation at Grundafjordur.
After we checked in we were taken round to our accommodation block near the harbour. The rooms were comfortable and warm with a kitchen along the corridor. Food was much more of a problem as the hotel Framnes stopped serving at 9.00 and the alternative restaurant also closed ( we think so the chap could watch the football) However, the hotel staff took pity on us and served us with a left over vegetable Lasagne which was very welcome.
A quick trip back to the hostel and we set off along the road to watch for aurora. Although we saw several possible light glows, there was nothing very aurora like. We returned to the hostel around 1.00 and went to bed.

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