• Summary
• Text account
• Data table and detailed info
• Map
• Reference and further resources

Site description (2000 baseline)
A wildlife-rich coastal area with rocky shores, beaches and estuarine intertidal flats on Rosmhvalanes, west and north of Keflavík airport. The area extends from Hvalnes to the village of Gardur. There are also some dry grasslands by the coast.

Key biodiversity
The area supports important numbers of coastal waterbirds outside the breeding season, including staging waders on passage (max. 4,000 in May). Thousands of large gulls winter in the area (Larus argentatus, L. glaucoides, L. hyperboreus and L. marinus). Numbers of breeding species are also notable, including Somateria mollissima (over 1,000 pairs) and Sterna paradisaea (a few thousand pairs).

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Stafnes-Gardur (Iceland). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/stafnes-gardur-iba-iceland on 23/12/2024.