July 17, 2013
Diver, Waterfall, and Puffins in Iceland

We've had a busy week since my last blog entry. We left the Snæfellsnes peninsula and headed to the Westfjords in search of Atlantic puffins. We stopped for dinner near Berufjörður one evening and noticed some whooper swans at a nearby pond. After dinner, we headed down to the pond and saw some red-throated divers or loons. I was really excited to photograph them because I haven't gotten any good loon images anywhere before. We had so much fun photographing them and some other birds in the surrounding area that we spent the night there.

It seems like there's a waterfall or set of cascades at least every 10 mi (16 km) here in Iceland. Most are just nice to look at, but some are photogenic enough for us to stop. One stop was this braided waterfall near Kjálkafjörður.

One of the best places to view Atlantic puffins is at the Látrabjarg bird cliffs in the Westfjords. It's also the western-most point in Iceland. We spent four nights camped just down the road in order to spend time with the Atlantic puffins, razorbills, black-legged kittywakes, and northern fulmars. The birds are not afraid of humans which makes them rather easy to photograph. It's still work to get a good image like this guy standing among a patch of wildflowers.

It's quite challenging to get an Atlantic puffin stretching its wings because you have to set up farther away than you would for just a portrait image, and then miss all of the good portrait opportunities that occur before the subject finally stretches its wings. And then you hope that it hasn't turned to face the other way before it does so. Sometimes it all works out and you end up with an image like this one.