National Museum of Iceland and Reykjanes Peninsula

First part of the morning was spent at the National Museum of Iceland which is quite extraordinary!

We also discovered that you don't need a car to do serious birding in Iceland... simply walk 5 minutes to the local park and all the rare birds you've hoped to see are right there at your feet.

And we also did a "pelagic trip" by car, a first for us. The roads are conveniently designed for viewing pelagic birds from inside your car (a handy thing when in the midst of 50MPH winds).

The Reykjanes Peninsula was a gem and offered bountiful opportunities for birding (Hafnaberg Bird Cliffs), as well as stunning countryside completely covered with lava, steep mountains, geothermal areas (Yes, we did go to the Blue Lagoon... but not into the Blue Lagoon as it was a torrential downpour and almost hurricane-force winds).

Here are some Whooper Swans down the street from our hotel in Reykjavik

The must sought after Tufted Duck is below:

Arctic Terns are EVERYWHERE!

A nice thing about being astride the Mid-Atlantic Rift, dividing Europe from North America, is that we get to add birds to 2 continental lists (we're quite busy making sure which continent we're on when viewing a bird). Sometimes we're on both continents at the same time!