Monday 9 May 2011

Bird pond birds.


In the middle of Reykjavík's City Centre is a large pond that always gathers loads of birds on it, like such ponds do. More in the summer than in the winter when only one corner of it stays constantly open. The rest of the pond sometimes freezes over so well that people walk over it, and especially when the weather turns for warmer and people are drunk, accidents happen. Last winter some guy almost drowned when he fell through the ice. The water's not very deep, but if you panic you don't dare try to reach for the bottom of the pond.

Such things aside, in the summer the bird population is not only bigger, it has more variety too.


It's full of hettumáfur/naurulokki that may or may not be called Arctic Tern in English. I have been corrected: these are actually Black-headed Gulls. They're really troublesome and annoying and I wasn't trying to take a photo of these two, they simply bombed the photo.


Tukkasotka/Tufted Duck? Some sotka anyway. Skúfönd, says Snu.


Pikkujoutsen/Tundra Swan.


Selkälokki/sílamávur/Seagull or just Flying Rat as Finns like to call them. They evacuate town for winter and come back for the summer and then there's more of them that would ever be needed.


Annnd haahka/Common Eider/æðarfugl.


Row row row your boat~

Beside these, there's of course any amount of merihanhi/Greylag Goose at all times. They're so used to humans they hardly care about you as anything but a source of food. Apparently a friend of Snu&fellows once walked right up to one, picked it up and carried it around with him. Could have been a drunken idea, IDK, eventually he let the bird back in the pond if memory serves.

EDIT: most likely the bird was a Mallard and the friend was sober. He quietly sneaked up behind it, grabbed at it and ran up Laugarvegur with a duck under his arm. Somehow police got involved and started chasing him and the duck with their van. Eventually the duck had enough of the tomfoolery, bit him and flew off. 
Happy End.

2 comments:

  1. Onkohan noita pikkujoutsenia Suomessakin? Mulla on hailea muistikuva siitä, mutta yleensä vaa puhutaa laulu- tai kyhmyjoutsenista.

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  2. On niitä, jossei muuten niin kevätmuuttomatkalla! Ne näyttää kyl aika lailla laulujoutsenilta et varsinkaan kauempaa ei meikäläisen harjaantumaton silmä erota - valokuvasta kyllä koska sitä saa killittää niin kauan ku huvittaa.

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