Thursday, June 29, 2006

Finally i got a permanent appartment in the Westman Islands. Its already my 3rd place this summer and I was literally on the street yesterday with all my stuff in the car. I have lots of good people around me so i wouldnt have had to sleep in my car but I am very very very happy to finally have a "permanent" place. Rosi will move in when she gets back from Germany.
Yesterday was quite panicky since the appartment was empty and we had to move furniture from two other appartments that are not fit to live in but had quite nice furniture that I could take. So we spent all afternoon and evening driving around, looking for keys, getting permits, blah blah and then finally move all the bloodie stuff. I was lucky to have two guys, Palli and Auðunn, helping me out and I was very tired and very sweatie when I had put everthing in place and cleaned... It is such a big apartment that you could go bowling in the living room :) Now Im a very happy chappy :)

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

I have made a new photo site: check out the Surtsey photos here and view them as a slide show :)

Monday, June 26, 2006

We went to put up the puffin site grids today and there we witnessed something extraordinary. Two fulmars (fýlar) miscalculated something and they aimed right at each other and then smashed leaving one of them with a half broken neck and breathing problems. At first we hoped it would be ok, but it was not so we had to put an end to its misery... I have so fallen in love with these birds with the most beautiful eyes in the world and it was tough to watch this :(

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Surtsey is now my most favourite place in Iceland, simple as that. Every step on the island brought us amazing images and I have never been as mesmerized in my whole life. It was a privilege to be there since only scientists and special guests get permission the go there. Walking on this 40 year old island was like walking on fragile glass, but our footprints will soon be wiped out since the island is facing heavy erosion and within 100-150 years only the solid rock will be left standing.

We were lucky literaly to get there in the first place, the waves were very high and the rescue team had great difficulties getting us there. We were all put in wet suits and we were ferried along with our luggage on a small dingie. Waiting for us there were extremely curious grey seals, popping their heads up from the water and just staring at those strange creatures. Since my camera was safely tucked away I did not get any pictures of this adventure. And on the last day my memory card was full so I had to delete some photos... on top of that the camera battery died when I got on the boat so I dont have any photos of Surtsey from the boat. Big bummer...
The weather was so great on the way back that the rescue team agreed to take us for a sightseeing tour around the Westman Islands and going past Súlnasker and Hellisey was amazing. Its the biggest breeding place for the Gannet (Sula bassana - Súla) and those graceful birds filled the air while we passed the islands... Hopefully I will go with my friend Freydís to Hellisey later this summer and check out the Gannets more closesly :)

I want to thank Rosi, Ingvar, Steini and Kristján for the great company during those amazing days on Surtsey.

The pictures I took in Surtsey are only a fade shadow of what the island truly looks and feels like. I put more pics on my picture site.

My great aussie mate Jonno (the hot male) and his friend Stefan are going to surf 50 states of the US. They have launched the Surfing50States-homepage, check it out :)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

A nest of the Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago)

SURTSEY !!!! Woohooooo.... we are going at 19:00 tonight... will be back on Saturday :)

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

I have been sick since Sunday :( Not fun driving to the ferry with a fever and then spend 3 hours on the boat with everything spinning. But Im a viking, i will survive :) Now the big news is that we might be going to SURTSEY tomorrow, the youngest island of the world, only 40 years old. We will be taken there by the rescue team boat of the Westman Islands and divers will guide a zodiac toward the shore. Its very hard to get there so I have to be ready for getting very wet. I will be noting down all flaura/fauna species I encounter and we will also be getting some rock samples. I reeeeeeeally hope the sea will be calm enought for us to get there...

Thursday, June 15, 2006

HAHAHA.... Vitiði hvað sandsíli (fæða lundans) er á færeysku???? NEBBASILD .... hahahha :)

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

IM GOING ON A XAVIER RUDD CONCERT IN LONDON ON THE 12TH OF AUGUST.... YEIIIIIIIII !!!! For those of you who dont know me very well.... this is my favourite musician in the whole world, I was almost a groupie in Australia and he lived close to where I lived so I saw his house :) And I got a hug from him and an autograph :) (smiling in a big circle). www.xavierrudd.com

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Stormsvala (Storm Petrel), SOOOO CUTE !!! One of the smallest seabirds of the world.













Sjósvala (Leach´s Petrel)













Me and my favourite Fulmar (fýll) :) She was so calm and beautiful, did not vomit at all hehe.













Again, me and my favourite :)













Sunset from Ystiklettur

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Two days turned into 4 days on Ystiklettur since the waves were too high to get on the boat to Elliðaey. I was quite bummed not to get back there since I want to work with the storm petrels (stromsvölur) again. But instead we used the last two days catching Fulmars (fýll, Fulmarus glacialis). Jacob was very brave and brilliant in catching them, both with his hands and with a pole :) Fulmars are very beautiful birds even though their vomit stinks really badly... My favourite bird I have handled so far was one of the fulmar females. She was so calm and beautiful, we got lots of amazing photos of her which I will put here soon. I completely fell in love with the species and hopefully will have the chance to work with them again. We climbed down Ystiklettur yesterday with tons of luggage, one wrong step and we would have tumbled down the steep path and probably broken something, a camera or a neck. Having garbage bags hanging down the big backpack made everything very unstable, but we went down slowly and it was fine. I was very happy to get down though and very very happy to finally have a shower. This time the toilet was working in the hut but not the shower... The Ystiklettur adventure chapter of my life is now finished since Jacob left to Spain this morning and on Monday the big puffin project awaits me.
Now I am enjoying the fishermans-weekend here. Lots of activity and today there was a boat race, pillow fight on a pole over the sea, and at least 30 crazy Westmanislanders jumped in the freezing water.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The planned relaxing weekend in Reykjavík turned out to be very busy, but I still feel refreshed after meeting family and friends. When I got here last night by the ferry I had half an hour to get ready for the next adventure. I met the group in Elliðaey, which is the island closest to the mainland and there we stayed over night capturing and marking puffins, Storm Petrels (stormsvölur) and Leach´s Storm Petrels (sjósvölur). The Storm Petrels are the smallest European seabirds and SOOOOOOOO cute... The puffins look like giant mountains in comparison. I spent a lot of time handling them and getting parasites off their wings and they felt like cotton, so small and vulnerable. I almost cried ;) I also got bitten by a puffin and wow they can really hurt... When I was getting off the boat to the slippery island I almost slid into the ocean... my feet got all wet and I almost dragged my saviour Ingvar with me, but we got up and my camera is still unharmed thank goodness... Since I got wet, I got cold and was shivering all night but we had few hours rest in the hut and there I found dry woolen socks that saved my life and health. Thank you Icelandic sheep wool :) We got back around lunch time and tonight I will be off again to Ystiklettur where I will spend the next two nights working on the Shearwaters with Jacob. Its going to be shitty weather tonight and tomorrow so think warm thoughts for me please :)

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Ystiklettur, the white spot is the hut we stayed in













The lovely hut with a view of the town













The looong cable down to the beach, when working there is a motor that pulls stuff up and down













PUFFIN















Manx Shearwater (Puffinus puffinus) being measured













Jacob and me getting parasites off the poor shearwater which is NOT happy... They have very sharp claws and beak which they used every chance they got.















We were working a lot during the night so we witnessed amazing sunrises...












The last week has been a big adventure helping Jacob, a catalonean sea bird expert, doing measurements and marking of shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus - skrofa á íslensku). This is a bird related to fulmar (fýll) but they dig burrows where they lay their eggs in a similar way as puffins do and inbetween puffin burrows. So we climbed Ystiklettur again on Sunday and stayed in the hut until yesterday... so 5 days without a shower and toilet.... We had to dig into the burrows to find the birds and when captured we marked and measure them and the eggs, blood samples and parasites were also taken, painfully unpleasant for the poor birdies to be sprayed on with pesticide and then massaged for 7 minutes to get the parasites off. In Iceland, shearwaters only breed in Ystiklettur in the Westman Islands and then they migrate to Brazil. We put geolocators on some of the birds which will allow tracking of their travel route, hopefully they wont fall off... This trip was sadly not just fun since I found a flea in my bed and now Im covered in fleabites... YUCK... And the big amount of bird poo piling up on us was not the most pleasant thing I have encountered but at least it did not smell as bad as fulmar puke. It was actually hillarious to watch the others get pooed on :) Now I will enjoy few "relaxing" days in Reykjavík...