Birdwatching excursion

Next up was the highlight of the day, a birdwatching excursion at Stokkseyri. We were accompanied by Jóhann Óli Hilmarsson, a bird expert of international fame through his work in the Birdlife magazine.

The basement of the building where we initially gathered was originally used for heating — by keeping sheep there.

There was a collection of stuffed birds in the other room.

Here is a familiar example from the collection.

(Puffin, Fratercula arctica.)

After this introduction, the birdwatching part of the trip begun. We drove in the bus to the sea shore, where there were a lot of birds.

However, they were too far away to take any pictures. But of course, given that I had a digital camera and binoculars with me, I had to try how well digiscoping works with this basic equipment.

Theoretically, digiscoping is simple: one points the camera through the binoculars and presses the shutter.

In practice... the results are on the left.

The dots in the upper left picture could be either birds or rocks.

Also, the white... thing in the lower edge of the lower right picture might be the neck of a swan we saw, unless it is a piece of plastic pipe. I think it is the swan, but the picture alone does not tell this.

Another digiscoping attempt. This one at least clearly is a bird.

Too bad the picture is too blurry to tell which kind.