This will be the first of a number of posts documenting Molly and my visit with the puffins. While Hafnarhólmi is very remote in the far north of Iceland, this location is reached via road (not boat) and then hiking a boardwalk out onto the headland. At times the Atlantic Puffins were only a few feet away from us. I suspect this “puffin viewing experience” is one of the best in the world, but it is “far from the maddening crowd”. We arrived by 7:50 am in the morning after a one hour drive from our AirBnB. Arriving early was good for three reasons:
- The number of birders at Hafnarhólmi was very limited at 7:50 am in the morning.
- The light / sun is best showing in terms of angle relative to the puffin colony and boardwalk early in the morning
- Puffins, like most birds, are most active in the morning
Documenting how close I was to the puffins, every image in this post was taken with my phone!!! The subsequent puffin posts will have my Sony A6300 images. This is one more indication of how phenomenal was the viewing experience.
View from our AirBnB of the Puffin’s Mountain Range. We had to drive through these mountains to reach the ocean … one hour distant. We reached the lower snow fields during our drive “up and over”. (first image by me … second by Molly). However the road was surprising good.
Here are a few of Molly’s iPhone photos and her introductory description of our puffin expedition. (see her full blog post on Superior FootPrints).
Today is the day Rich has been waiting for all year! He turned 70 this spring, and we each get to plan a trip of our choice on our decade birthdays. We are in Iceland for a week, traveling the Ring Road and taking in all its beauty. But the whole reason for coming is to see puffins. His ultimate destination was the Hafnarholmi preserve, home of the nesting grounds for thousands of Atlantic puffins every summer.
The drive to get there took us up and over mountain ridges with vistas of green hillsides flanked by lava peaks pocked with snow, twisting and winding around switchbacks and ultimately reaching the sea. That only added to the magic as we anticipated our destination.
The area has long been home to nesting puffins, and thanks to local farmers who donated their land to BirdLife Iceland, a safe viewing area has been constructed to watch these wonderful birds. We got there early in the morning, some of the first to arrive. The preserve is on a peninsula beyond the harbor, where wooden stairs and boardwalks enable visitors to get up close to the puffins.
View from the Parking Lot when we arrived. The weather could not have been more amazingly good for northern Iceland! We will walk out onto the headland via the boardwalk.
The Boardwalk!
And now on to the stars of the shows … the Atlantic Puffins of Hafnarhólmi (Google Maps Link). Please note this location is an extremely long drive north of Reykjavik … perhaps 10 hours to the puffin spot. However, the northern part of Iceland tends to be dryer than the south near Reykjavik. It is possible to take a short flight to Egilsstaðir Airport via Iceland Air. One could then rent a car and enjoy the north which is not as crowded as the southern tourist locations.
Once again … these images were taken with only my mobile phone. I will post my photographs taken with my Sony A6300 in subsequent posts. MAKE CERTAIN YOU WATCH THE VIDEO. It is an amazing show! (video link for blog email subscribers)
Icelandic Puffin Power (Cliff Diving?!)
As noted previously, I will be posting much better images of these puffins in my subsequent posts, but I need time to process those photographs off my Sony camera. I will link those posts at this location. These two images are from my Google Pixel 10.
End of post.
