Iceland's economic woes have been, with varying degrees of accuracy, widely reported during these past weeks. The upside for visitors is that our weak currency makes things much more affordable. There's never been a better time to visit.

We are well placed to ride out the turmoil and we're sure that our naturalist clients will continue to arrive. After all, our wildlife knows nothing of banking, monetary policy or the strength of the Euro!

Our 2009 programme is nearly complete. Please get in touch for more information.

Is the title of a recently published book by Sigrún Helgadóttir. It’s an excellent guide to the geology, natural history and human history of this national park which has some of the most spectacular scenery in the country. Currently only in Icelandic but we have hopes for an English translation in the future. Highly recommended.

Here’s a link to the national park leaflet in English (downloadable PDF).

An article in National Geographic magazine’s March edition covers the debate raging in Iceland about the environmental impacts of hydro and geothermal energy production, particularly for new aluminium smelters.

This is a topic of enormous interest to our clients. You can read an online version here.

We've been sifting through our recent pictures and have assembled a new photo album of images from this summer's trips together with some old favourites as well.
Magazines, brochures and guide books are full of stunning Iceland images, mostly taken by professionals, but we think it's worth mentioning that all the pictures in this album were taken with an ordinary 'point and shoot' camera.
Fortunately, you don't need to be a specialist to take reasonable pictures here — photography in Iceland is accessible to all.

We've refreshed our website to include more of Mike Langman's wonderful artwork. Iceland enthusiast Mike has an enviable knack for catching his subjects' 'wildness' with pens and brushes. We understand that a new painting of pink-footed geese flying near Iceland's most famous volcano, Hekla will be exhibited at the weekend. Here's a sneak peek...

It's been a busy summer with, wait for it, lots of good weather! Our groups have thoroughly enjoyed their trips and we have had some wonderful wildlife sightings — which is a good excuse to insert this photo of some puffins taken recently on the lovely island of Flatey, west Iceland.

We're already taking bookings for next year (and indeed 2009); we can't promise you good weather but we can promise a great time.

The weather is always a popular topic of conversation here. Weather patterns are very changeable and accurate forecasting is difficult to achieve. The Iceland Meterological Service has an important job to do and a recent upgrade of its website has resulted in a great improvement in the display of weather information and forecasts — highly recommended. The site also has seismic information and historical weather data. It's well worth a look before you visit Iceland. However, whatever the forecast, don't leave your waterproofs at home!

At last some good conservation news from Iceland ...

Iceland's parliament agreed on Saturday to the establishment of Vatnajökulsthjódgardur which will become the largest national park in Europe. It will cover the Vatnajökull glacier and encompass existing national parks at Skaftafell and Jökulsárgljúfur.

The park is scheduled to open next summer and will cover more than 12% of Iceland.

Vatnajökulsthjódgardur is in south east Iceland and has some of the most impressive scenery to be found anywhere in the country.

It's a quiet time of year here in Iceland so we're away on holiday ourselves. Email, phone and fax contact may be a bit slow so apologies if we keep you waiting. Back on 6 March.

The holiday season has been very mild and wet with daily temperatures much higher than usual for the time of year. Rainfall has also been heavy with lots of flooding in southern Iceland on the days leading up to Christmas. One farm was completely cut off by flood waters as the picture from Icelandic daily Morgunblaðið shows.

What's in store for 2007? Well, who knows, but don't leave your raincoat behind!

A happy new year to you all.

After an interval of 17 years Iceland’s Government gave the go ahead for commercial whaling to resume yesterday. This follows its 2003 decision to allow limited numbers of minke whales to be killed for ‘scientific’ research. In addition to allowing a further ‘harvest’ of minke whales the new policy also allows the hunting of fin whales — a species considered endangered by the international community. It appears the new regulations allow hunting to start right away.

We are saddened by this announcement and will write to the Icelandic Government expressing our displeasure and asking them to think again about this regrettable decision.

As you can imagine this topic is frequently raised by participants in our tours and we have compiled a short FAQ sheet to provide some background information for inquirers. A BBC report is here.

Update on 2 November 2006
There has been an amazing amount of global publicity concerning this issue and Iceland has been roundly criticised by many nations. Yesterday 24 countries formally protested to the Icelandic Government and requested that the decision be reversed. The BBC carried this report and you can read the text of the joint document here.

We have sent a letter to the Icelandic Government recording our concerns. You can read it here.

We’ve recently returned from the Azores where we’ve been running some natural history trips. Geologically, these mid-Atlantic islands are very much like Iceland but, of course, the climate is much milder and the vegetation is very different. The Azores is a splendid choice for an early autumn holiday.

Update on 3 October
Birdwatchers can get up-to-date information on recent sightings in the Azores here

It's a quiet time here so we're away on holiday ourselves. Email should work as usual though phone and fax contact may be a bit slow. Back on 8 March.