Current view: Text account
Site description (2000 baseline):
Site location and context
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.
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).
Pressure/threats to key biodiversity
Birds are disturbed by people (tourists, etc.) in some parts of the area. The IBA is on the list of sites of conservation interest in the Nature Conservation Register.
National None
International None
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.
