Saturday, 12 December 2015

Tour at 13:00

Report from Eldey: If it was good conditions yesterday, we had excellent conditions today! Sunshine, no wind and a smooth sea made spotting conditions very good. We could see far away in the distance and the landscape was stunning this winter day. After sailing for an hour we saw a minke whale! Out of nowhere it surfaced on our right side, a real surprise because this species migrate during winter to warmer waters further south. Sometimes individuals can be seen during wintertime but it is not common. The whale traveled fast away from us and we could see it surfacing 4-5 times a couple of hundred meters away. When it went for a deeper dive we sadly lost it and even though we waited for a long time we didn't relocated this minke. We continued out in the bay and came across huge flocks of seagulls feeding. Among them a pod of 4-5 white-beaked dolphins! They were a bit scattered in the area but we always had one or two surfacing close to our boat. Really beautiful to see these dolphins in the setting sunshine. On our way back we got company from 1 or 2 dolphins riding the waves behind our boat, providing us with some last looks before we got back to harbour after a successful tour out on Faxaflói.

- Marcus Bergström

Birds seen on todays tour include: Greater black-backed gulls, black-headed gulls, glaucous gulls, Iceland gulls, common gulls, herring gulls, European shag, cormorants, common guillemots, razorbills, long-tailed ducks and eider ducks.