this female was busy throughout the day hunting bugs and bringing them back to her chicks. In Iceland the volcanic rock displays colorful lichen, as seen here, most often this gold chartreuse color but also a variety of reds, oranges, etc, ...

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Always a treat to see an american oystercatcher at the shore back home, but in Iceland they are seen both inland and at the shore. I have seen them in plowed fields, on edges of roadways, and common on manicured lawns! Away from the coast the long "carrot" beak will probe for earthworms as their main prey, foraging repeatedly by poking its bill into soft ground.

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This male was swimming amongst a half dozen other phalaropes one evening in a small pool of water in a marshy, boggy habitat. Interesting behaviors with phalaropes: role reversal... The female is the most colorful and chooses her mate, lays the eggs leaving the male to incubate and care for the chicks. Often, she will look for another mate and follow the same cycle of behavior...

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these puffins kept a watchful eye on their burrow below the rock they perched upon atop the cliff. Im sure there was a chick waiting to be fed.

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Alas, I came across this couple on the very top of the cliff and was able to lie in the grass and photograph them. Some two hundred feet below was a raucous colony of razorbills, with constant arrivals and departures. I was surprised to catch the "school bus yellow" inside their mouths.

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