Current view: Text account
Site description (2000 baseline):
Site location and context
A coastal area in and near the capital, with sea bays, shingle and stony beaches, peninsulas, intertidal flats, brackish lagoons and marshes. The area extends from Bali on álftanes along the coast, inwards to Skerjafjördur and up to the north part of Seltjarnarnes. Eider husbandry (
Somateria mollissima) is practised at Bessastadir.
An important area for coastal waterbirds. Other species in notable numbers include
Clangula hyemalis (wintering),
Haematopus ostralegus (c.60 breeding pairs; 200+ staging on passage),
Calidris alpina (few hundreds staging on passage),
Tringa totanus (few hundreds staging on passage), and hundreds to thousands of large gulls in winter (
Larus argentatus,
L. glaucoides,
L. hyperboreus and
L. marinus).
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
Birds are disturbed by local people and tourists. The area is on the list of sites of conservation interest in the Nature Conservation Register. The site is an enlarged and re-named version of the IBA `álftanes', formerly IS020 in the previous international IBA inventory (Grimmett and Jones 1989).
National None
International None5 ha of IBA covered by unknown type of protected area (Grötta, 5 ha).
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Skerjafjordur (Iceland). Downloaded from
https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/skerjafjordur-iba-iceland on 23/11/2024.
