What the Duck?

If the thought of yet more pictures of birds makes  your eyelids droop, shoulders drop and your mouth gape, you may skip this section, although you might want to read the first bit:

Two days ago I came back to a place I had fled from 2 weeks earlier: Myvatn, one of the most trumpeted destinations on the tourist circle and one of the best places for birds. Though I've been doing my best to avoid the former, the demands of the latter won. I even went back to the same campsite - the one where, as soon as you  have found a pitch, Mr. Smarmy creeps  up smiling and asking: 

"Please to move your car a leetle bit this way so other car can get in here." It's no good me saying it's not a car. For some reason in Iceland all vehicles are cars. The business plan here is to cram as many tents, vans and cars in as possible, and since people continue to arrive up to 11pm, by the time I shut up shop the place is dangerously overcrowded.

However it is cheap because they offer a euro price of 10 as opposed to 1200kr - a difference of £5! It also has some stunning views over the lake.

 

This was at 10:30pm.

And this at 7 the next day. I'm here mainly for the ducks. There are several I have not yet identified, although the Most Important Duck in Iceland I have already found - Barrows Goldeneye, the only bird endemic to Iceland:

Getting portrait pictures of the roster is important, but even more important to me is getting pictures which tell a story, like this one where mother Widgeon is doing a trawl of the tents before the camper wake up.

The other big beasts in the Iceland duck world are these, all of which I've never seen before

Long Tailed Duck

Harlequin Duck (Believe me the drakes are spectacular but all seemed to have done a bunk - probably moulting.)

Common Scoter (by no means common)

Scaup

Add to these the commonest duck in Iceland which play the role of Mallards in Britain, but at home can only normally be seen in Scotland even though for most of my youth we slept under  quilts called "eiderdowns".