Ísafjörður, Iceland - Day 17 - July 18, 2023

Our ship docked in Ísafjörður, Iceland this morning about 7:00 AM. We got up and had breakfast early as we had to meet for our excursion at 8:20 AM.

We had chosen a visit to Virgur Island to see nesting seabirds. Until we arrived on the island, neither of us had remembered that we had been to this island on Sept 4, 2013 on the Princess cruise we took with my mom and my aunt. However, this time, got to see many birds that were not there on our last trip as they had already migrated for the winter (they leave mid-August).

Our day started off cloudy and cold (~45F) and we were glad for our warm coats and mittens.  The smaller boat trip to the island took about 30 minutes.

Virgur Island is about 6600 ft in length and 1300 ft wide. It is designated as an internationally important seabird habitat.  It is home to one of the largest Atlantic Puffin colonies in Iceland (estimated at more than 100,000 puffins), a rare Black Guillemot colony of about 1000 birds and about 880 breeding pairs of Arctic Terns...as well as the 7000 breeding Eider ducks.  That is a LOT of birds on a small island.

The guide for our visit was a french zoologist studying the birds on the island. As we exited the boat we were each handed a 3 foot stick with a number and small flag at the top...we asked what they were for and were told we would find out later.

The first thing we saw were a couple of puffins sitting on a rock to greet us.

After the cute pair of puffins, the next thing we noticed was the Black Guillemots literally everywhere...hundred of them, sitting on walls, on the beach, on the ground and most surfaces.  They didn't really seem to be afraid of humans. The guillemots don't make nests, but rather find crevices, places in walls, etc to hatch their eggs and raise their young, often making their nests and eggs ascessible to predator gulls and reducing their hatching success.

Black Guillemot in front of its nesting hole

It has disappeared inside...

Arctic Tern (above)

Black Guillmots sitting in the wall

Arctic Terns and Black Guillemots hanging out together...ignoring us as we walked by...

                                                        Eider ducks above

As we were walking around, the guide found an orphaned baby Eider Duck that had just been hatched. When the researchers find abandoned eggs, they incubate them and then, after they hatch, release them on the beach. Usually a mother duck will adopt them but no such luck for this one.  He put it back inside in a nesting box and was going to try and re-release it tomorrow.

We next learned more about eider ducks and the production of eider down. The female chooses a nesting site and lays 1 egg every 24 hours, generally laying between 3-6 eggs. Before incubation begins, the eggs are left largely unprotected with seaweed in their nest. When the female begins to incubate the eggs, a hormone is released which triggers the production of down which they then use to line their nests and insulate their eggs.  She often turns the eggs and raises and lowers her body to keep the eggs at the proper temperature.  

The "farmers" on the island, repeatedly and carefully remove the down from the nests, replacing it with hay.  Once the ducks realize they are not harming the eggs, they seem to be okay with the collection.

What a nest looks like...

Once the eider is harvest, it must be cleaned as it is very dirty.  Preparation is as follows:

• Drying on metal racks
• Sterilization - the down must be heated in a special Icelandic oven for 24-48 hours to kill any bugs
• Machine cleaning - a tumbling machine, invented in Iceland, separates the down from the majority of straw and dirt
• Defeathering - another machine removes 95% of the feathers and quills, leaving just the down.
• Machine Washing - the down is machine-washed with a special down-proof soap
• Hand Cleaning - the down is inspected and cleaned by hand which takes 10-32 hours per kg of eiderdown. Our guide told us that ~50 kg of harvested down is reduced down to ~2-4 kg after this cleaning process.
• Government certification is required to "farm" eider down in Iceland.

That is why it is so expensive!! 

Cleaned eiderdown

Our next stop was the local cafe where we experienced rhubarb cake.  The rhubarb is grown on the island, assisted by nesting Guillemots and their natural fertilizer. The farm's "grandmother" on the island makes rhubarb jam which is used in the cake.  It was delicious.

Next we went back outside to view more puffins on a rock near the old windmill.  The windmill is the oldest surviving windmill in Iceland (built ~ 1840) and possibly the northernmost windmill in the world (we have seen a lot of "northernmost things").

The island is also home to Iceland's oldest seaworthy boat.

Puffins sitting on the rock and in the water...all the black dots.

Our guide told us that after puffins catch food, they come back and sit around for awhile with it in their mouths...showing off their catch.  See the video Chris took....

In the next part of the tour, we learned why we had been carrying around sticks as we walked through the Arctic Tern nesting area.  They are aggressive birds and obviously don't like us walking through their nesting area and so they dive bomb your head...actually, they go after the highest point, which is your stick. Chris got hit hard twice by the dive bombers; without the sticks you have to make a run for it trying to cover your head. They also occasionally poop on you...that happened to one woman in our group.

Arctic Tern Attack #1 and Arctic Tern Attack #2.  Chris got attacked a couple of times while taking the videos when he didn't hold his stick up high enough.

Last night as our cabin was finally facing west, I tried to get a picture of the midnight sun.  It just gets to the horizon, but doesn't actually set.  I took the picture below at 10:14 PM and then set my alarm for midnight.  But when I got up at midnight, it was cloudy and foggy so I couldn't get another picture...so this one I refer to as my "almost midnight sun."

Almost...midnight sun!

We leave the ship at 8:00 AM tomorrow to head home, so this will be my last post for this trip!  It's been a great trip -- perhaps even better than we ever anticipated -- and hopefully there will be more to post about in the future...we have a lot of trips planned.