Rare Encounters on Icelandic Shores

I didn’t come to Iceland to photograph wildlife. That wasn’t the intention, not even a passing thought. The focus was elsewhere—on the textures of land, the architecture of ice, the moods of weather moving across open space. Wildlife felt like something for another trip, another kind of project.

But sometimes the landscape offers up its own ideas.

What began as a quiet stretch of travel turned into something else entirely: brief, unsought encounters with animals I never expected to see. A pilot whale, rising dark and breathless through still water. A Northern bottlenose whale, rare and shy, breaking the surface before slipping into silence. An osprey, banded and watching, far from where it was supposed to be. Even a white barnacle goose among the darker bodies—one anomaly standing out like punctuation in a line of text.

I photographed each of them. Not with preparation or intention, but because they appeared, and I was there.

The Pilot Whale

Pilot whales surfacing in fjord, North Iceland

We were out at sea—cruising along cliff‑lined fjords, listening to gulls, scanning the water for dolphins and humpbacks (yes, one surfaced, briefly, and was gone)—when a darker shape broke the surface. Then another. A pod of around 30 pilot whales, moving as one. Sleek and unhurried, they arched through the water, their dorsal fins slicing the pale surface like calligraphy. For a moment, everything else fell away. There was even a very young one—small, still learning the shape of the sea—who leapt clean out of the water, as if curious about us, or simply testing its own lightness.

Pilot whales (Globicephala melas) are social, family‐oriented, traveling in pods. They are more commonly found in deeper offshore waters, especially in the North Atlantic—but they are not a regular sight close to Iceland’s shores. Their movements are somewhat erratic, often influenced by shifting prey like squid. You can spend weeks at sea and never glimpse them. Seeing one near the surface, in relatively calm waters, was a brief but rare alignment of timing and geography.

The Northern Bottlenose Whale

A bit later, when we were cruising back, came another surprise: Northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus). It’s rarer still—you hear about them less often, especially in open water. Less surface drama than some whales; more of a shy, deep‑dwelling type. Their bulbous foreheads, deep set eyes, small dorsal fin set far back—all tell you this is a creature born for plunging into darkness, for living where light falls off.

Northern bottlenose whales seen near Icelandic coast

I watched them rise, exhale in a soft plume, then slip back into the blue—their bodies long, muscular, and deliberate. A quiet kind of power, built for depth and silence. To see a couple of these whales was a reminder how much of this Planet lies unseen, how much of life is in depths we seldom visit.

The Northern bottlenose whale is part of the elusive beaked whale family, and that makes sightings even more uncommon.These whales are deep-diving specialists—spending long periods far below the surface, in oceanic trenches and submarine canyons. Around Iceland, they’re known, but seldom seen.

Most people will never spot one in their lifetime. That I did, with a camera in hand, still feels improbable.

The Osprey

It was another day entirely. The kind of day that blends into the rhythm of the road—low clouds, shifting light, a trace of rain in the air. We were driving along a quiet stretch along one of the Western peninsulas when something on the ground caught our eye. A bird—larger than expected, motionless. We passed it before we could make sense of it. We turned the car around.

By then it had moved—perched now on a fence pole, the kind that you can find in the countryside. It was an osprey.

We approached slowly, quietly, careful not to startle it. It stayed just long enough. I managed a few photos, catching the posture, the intensity of its gaze, the curve of talons gripping the wood. And on one of its legs: a blue plastic band. A UK ring.

Tagged female osprey on a pole, holding fish

This bird had a story. A female osprey, ringed in the United Kingdom—probably part of a long-running monitoring project that tracks their movements. She had caught a fish from the river, still clutched in her feet. After a few minutes, she lifted off and flew with it, steady and low across the valley. A clean, purposeful departure.

Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) are rare visitors to Iceland. They don’t breed here, and most migration routes bypass the island entirely. Only a few sightings are recorded each year—usually individuals blown off course or wandering. To find one, on the ground, close enough to see the glint of a ring, is exceptional.

Later, I reported the sighting to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), using the tag number to help trace her origin. I also contacted BirdLife Iceland, knowing that even a single confirmed sighting can contribute to the broader picture of movement and survival.

It felt like more than just luck—it was a fragment of a larger migration, a moment where one bird’s journey intersected briefly with ours.

The White Barnacle Goose Among the Usual Flock

I spotted them from a distance—a loose flock of barnacle geese moving low against the wind, dark wings beating hard into the storm. They circled, wavered, then descended toward the lava field near the coast. When they were still flying, something flashed pale among them. I couldn’t quite trust what I saw.

Leucistic barnacle goose among darker geese

I left the road and walked—a couple of hundreds of metres across uneven ground, sharp grass, lava stone. The wind was up, the sky in motion. When I reached them, the flock had settled. A small flock of nine birds: black necks, white faces, slate-grey backs. One goose stood entirely apart.

Not just metaphorically. It was white.

Its posture and behaviour matched the others but its plumage made it look like something misplaced. A ghost in the pattern.

I had seen one like this before, some years ago in Svalbard. A leucistic barnacle goose. Leucism is a rare genetic condition that reduces pigment in the feathers, but unlike albinism, it doesn’t affect the eyes or bill. This goose still had its dark eyes and normal beak, but the usual black and grey tones were washed out, replaced with cream, ash, and bone. The effect is subtle up close—but at a distance, it glows.

Leucism in barnacle geese is uncommon. It has been documented in northern breeding populations, especially in Svalbard, but remains rare enough that most people will never see one. Studies suggest these individuals face greater risks—especially from predators and hunters—because their visibility breaks the flock’s natural camouflage.

And yet here it was. This bird had made it—across sea, storm, and migration routes—its difference intact. That fact alone felt powerful. A quiet defiance of odds. A small disruption in the pattern that held its own. I reported also this sighting to the Iceland BirdLife.

Another reminder that the rare doesn’t always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes it waits, grazing quietly at the edge of a flock, asking only to be seen.

Sometimes Luck Is With You

None of this was planned. I hadn’t come to Iceland seeking whales, ospreys, or pale geese. My camera wasn’t set for wildlife; most days, it stayed packed until something else—weather, land, light—called it out. But sometimes, the unexpected draws closer.

Each of these encounters felt peripheral at first. A shape in the water. A shadow on the ground. A brightness in a flock. But they became the centre, if only for a moment. And in that shift—when attention sharpens and you find yourself seeing—something opens.

Looking back, the images are just fragments. Not perfect, not staged. But they hold weight. Not just for what was photographed, but for the way presence moved through the day. A reminder that not all discovery comes from intention. Sometimes the rare finds you.

So no, I didn’t come to photograph wildlife. But the wild came anyway. Briefly. Quietly.