ÖRÆFAFERÐIR - From Coast To Mountains

28/08/2024

Well, now the puffin season is over this year, and I will be looking towards the mountain tours instead. Next weeks I will start to scout out what kind of ice caves I'm getting for this season, and I plan to offer my Helicopter Ice Cave Tour in the period November to March. Here are some ice cave photos from the ice caves I was having in January, February, March 2024. And few shots taken from the helicopter on the way to or back from the ice caves in Skeiðarárjökull glacier.
My ice cave tour is aimed for a party of serious photographers. Only private departures, and we will spend as much time as needed to be happy with our photography in the ice caves (and as long as the pilot is happy with the weather to be able to come and pick us up of course 😀

See https://www.fromcoasttomountains.com/helicopter-ice-cave-tour

28/08/2024

Well, this great puffin summer has come to an end this year, we spotted the last puffins in the evening tour on 20th of August. The summer was one of the best for the 30 years Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson has been involved in the tour, there seems to be a lot of young puffins preparing to make their home in Ingólfshöfði, with resulted in several weeks in the period mid June until end of first week of August where we had lots of puffins sitting around on the edges of the cliffs in every departure, not few good days, few bad days, like we normally have through the years. We had this also in summer 2023, but for longer period now in 2024.
Next summer we will be offering daily trips from 12th of May, but for the first week only at 19:45, because around mid May the evening is the best chance to have puffins sitting around, in the day time they are quite busy staying in the burrow (out of sight then) keeping the egg warm, and going to the sea for their own lunch, but it often seems the evening they take a little social time together on the edges of the cliffs. So 19:45 departure are offered in May 2025. In the latter part of May we will also offer the 10:15 departure. Then in June until early August 10:15 and 13:30 and then for the last week we offer the tour close to mid August, we go back to evening departures only, again to have the best chance to have puffins close to us on the tour.
The photo is from a evening visit to Ingólfshöfði several years ago😀
https://www.fromcoasttomountains.com/ingolfshofdi-puffin-tour

23/08/2024

Few shots from our afternoon visit to Ingólfshöfði with a group from Backroads 😀
Minke whale and humpback whale (and a seal)

23/08/2024

We guided a trip with Overland Travel to Ingolfshofdi last night. Their clients drive their trucks following our car. We hiked around the cape, studied the history and landscape and then we went down to the beach Kóngsvík west of the cape. We had a pair of humpback whales fishing in the surf really close to us😀

22/08/2024

I did a trip to Ingólfshöfði this morning and can verify that the puffins are gone. But the humpback whale is not gone 😀

20/08/2024

Very last open departure of Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour was tonight at 19:45. Lovely weather and very nice clients. 2-3 puffins in the cliffs and some on the sea. Spotted a whale and the night was magical 😀

20/08/2024

19/08/2024

Photo is from last night. Our trip this morning had only puffins on the sea. Last open departure of the summer is tomorrow night at 19:45 and while we expect to see puffins, we do not expect them to be up on the edges, but somewhere down in the cliffs. But we will bring a spotting scope on a tripod :-)

18/08/2024

last night

18/08/2024

Norther lights around midnight last night😀

17/08/2024

Trévík Panorama from Ingólfshöfði last night. Photo taken at 21:58.

17/08/2024

Last day of the daily Ingolfshofdi Puffin Tour this summer. We saw puffins through the spotting scope down on the bottom of the cliffs. Here are some shots from my Fuji 150-600mm lens 😀. I spotted a falcon also in the 13:30 trip.
Last night some puffins came up for an hour or so and we do plan 19:45 departures on Monday and Tuesday, hoping that the last puffins that are still around keep doing that😀

17/08/2024

Last night at 01:05 :-)

16/08/2024

Puffin gaping in the evening light in Ingólfshöfði tonight.

16/08/2024

We did a evening trip to Ingólfshöfði at 19:45 tonight and my theory was right, that even though most of the puffins have left now those that are still around come to meet upstairs in the evening for a short while before going down to the sea to sleep 😀

16/08/2024

Ingólfshöfði

16/08/2024

Last days of this season. This was yesterday 15th of August. Puffins in the cliffs.

16/08/2024

The pufflings rescued on the streets of the town in Vestmannaeyjar. So far close to 1900 pufflings 😀

Á þessu grafi má sjá fjölda pysja á dag , sem skráðar hafa verið inn í pysjueftirlitið á lundi.is. Einnig sýnir það meðalþyngd pysjanna hvern dag. Þar er líka lína sem sýnir meðalþyngd pysja öll árin sem pysjueftirlitið hefur verið starfrækt, eða árin 2003 - 2023 og sést þá vel hvað pysjurnar í ár eru þyngri en flest undanfarin ár.

Það er ekki að marka það að 14. ágúst hafi færri pysjur en dagarnir á undan. Það á bara eftir að skrá þær inn. Fjöldinn er enn á uppleið. Nú hafa 1892 pysjur verið skráðar.

Það var hann Rodrigo Martinez Catalan, sem var áður hjá Náttúrustofu Suðurlands, sem gerði þetta graf fyrir okkur.

15/08/2024

Well, the weather was really nice today. But that comes with a price this late in the puffin season, we only had puffins down in the cliffs, and could look at them through spotting scope on a tripod. I shot those with my 600 mm lens. Yesterday in the storm we had hundreds of puffins still landing on the cliffs edges, but now in the nice weather we have to except to see them only further down. However, on Monday and Tuesday (19th and 20th of August) we will offer the last open departures of this puffin season, and will only offer it in the evening, at 19:45. The puffins that are still there, (today we saw lot of them floating on the sea) most often come up on the edges of the cliffs to socialise for a while in the evening, but when it gets dark around 11 in night they all go back down to the sea.

14/08/2024

Windy and rainy in Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour today, and plenty of puffins. I was praying for bad weather, that seems to keep the puffins home for those last days we have them this summer :-)

13/08/2024

Puffins this evening in Ingolfshofdi 😀

13/08/2024

Good year also in Vestmannaeyjar😀

13/08/2024

Jæja, þá kom að því þetta sumarið. Ísak sá enga lunda sitja uppi, bara fáeina fljúga hjá, í 10:15 brottförinni og ég tók í fyrsta sinn síðan í byrjun júní með mér sjónauka (scope) á þrífæti. Sem betur fer, því einu lundarnir sem ég sá voru hér og þar niður í klettunum, í Skollatorfu, í Trévík, og við Bessatorfu (þar sem þessir tveir voru) og fullt af þeim á sjónum.
Allt gott tekur enda, og eins og ég hef sagt áður, í fyrrasumar var besta lundasumar sem ég man eftir hingað til í 30 ár, en sumarið núna 2024 slær því algjörlega við. Þar til fyrir nokkrum dögum höfum við séð hundruð eða þúsund lunda sitja nálægt okkur í öllum brottförum, allan daginn, líka í 16:00 ferðunum, sem venjlega enginn vill leiðsegja því það er oft svo fáir lundar í lok seinnipartsins ef það er gott veður, í margar vikur í röð. Maí og byrjun júní voru eins og vant með samt oft með bara fáeina lunda í sumum ferðum.
Ég á von á að sjá einhverja fáeina lunda samt fram að 20. ágúst, og eftir helgi á mánudag og þriðjudag eru síðustu opnu brottfarirnar, en þær verða kvöldferðir, kl. 19:45.

The puffin summer is nearing its end here in Ingólfshöfði, today there were only few puffins. Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson took a spotting scope in the afternoon trip so we could study them. Hopefully there will be windy and rainy day tomorrow so they will still fly up, there are still lots of puffins on the sea around the cape, and yesterday in the storm there were hundreds of them still sitting on top of the cape. But we will have to see 😀

12/08/2024

Stormy day today, but we could still do all our tours. Lots of puffins in the wind and the rain. Here are few shots from 13:30 departure.

11/08/2024

The pufflings are flying down from the hills around the town of Vestmannaeyjar and landing in the town, (get confused about the lights from the town, probably think it is moon light reflecting on the sea) and kids in Vestmannaeyjar have the exciting job of rescue them from the streets and then realease them to the open sea next day 😀
In Ingólfshöfði the pufflings are also leaving the burrows now, every night, but they land on the sea, so we do not need to rescue them there 😀

10/08/2024

And finally, some photos from the 9:00 Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour departure this morning, shot by Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson with Fuji X-H2s and Fuji 150-600mm lens from 😀

10/08/2024

Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson did the 9:00 departure this morning and had just few puffins on north, east and lighthouse side but plenty on the further west south side. Ended the trip in Kóngsvík for a little sand sliding😀
10:15 also had no puffins on north side of the cape and east side but Ísak was saved by several puffins arriving and landing at the lighthouse side.
Matthías Einarsson guided 13:30 trip and he had plenty of puffins on the north side of the cape.
These are from iPhone from 9:00. Will post photos from camera later.
Last thing in this post is a primitive time lapse video from my camera last night in front of Ingólfshöfði lighthouse. Taken between 19:11 and 23:13

09/08/2024

And finally here are some photos from the trip Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson did at 19:45 yesterday. The evening light was amazing, and there were over 1000 puffins sitting on the cliffs edges again, after a rather empty day with no wind and sun.

09/08/2024

Here are some photos from Einar Rúnar Sigurðsson on the 16:00 Ingólfshöfði Puffin Tour yesterday😀