Sheep are free roaming in the countryside during the summer. They have ear tags and are rounded up by farmers in the fall. We saw lots of mothers with babies in small groups, and had to stop on the roads in places. We even saw one baby with its head stuck in a gate that we reported at the police station in Vik. The policewoman said she would call the farmer when I showed her the spot on Google Maps.

We saw our first puffins at the Dyrholaey Lighthouse cliffs and our first humpback whale at Vikurfjara Beach, which was so exciting and unexpected.

Puffins (Lundi in Icelandic) are fun to watch in flight and as they land and take off. They can fly up to 55 mph because they beat their wings really fast—their wings are blurry. But they look a little clumsy upon landing. They are absolutely as cute as advertised.

We did see more humpbacks on our whale watching and puffins boat tour from North Sailing at the harbor in Husavik, but we were enjoying a cinnamon roll in one hand and hot chocolate in the other when a humpback whale surfaced very close to the boat right in front of us. That was very exciting, and we had to enjoy it live rather than record it.

When we passed Lundey or Puffin Island in the bay, the boat slowed down and our announcer whispered to us so as not to disturb the several hundred thousand puffins who nest here. This island is privately owned and it is protected from noise and close visits; binoculars are great to have.

The sunny day brought temperatures into the upper 60s, but we were grateful for the ship-provided jumpsuits out on the water. I was unzipping while in the sun; then zipping up, putting on gloves, and using the hood in the shade.

We saw lots of horses on farms, many of which were ready to provide horseback riding experiences. Hotel cats were friendly and taken care of by hotel staff.

While walking around before boarding the Dagfari for our boat tour, we found an interesting NASA monument on a hill near the harbor. To prepare for the geology of the moon, Apollo astronauts trained in Iceland in 1965 and 1967. There were lots of pretty flowers that someone had planted along the hillside walk up to this monument.

The only native mammal on Iceland is the arctic fox. Occasional polar bears may travel by ice from Greenland. We saw lots of song birds, but no small mammals like squirrels or rabbits. There are mice, rats and mink that came with people as well as imported reindeer and livestock.

Iceland is a birdwatching paradise. We watched ducks, whooper swans, geese, arctic terns, gulls, ptarmigans and little song birds throughout our travels. The terns were thick in the air catching insects near Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon, and we saw them surface-diving in harbors to catch small fish. Rock ptarmigans were in family groups on the tundra that we crossed while driving in the north. Whooper swans had cygnets in the many ponds/wetlands we drove past.

These two black-headed gulls were very entertaining in a playground in the town of Akureyri. Their back-and-forth chatter didn’t come through on the video, but it sounded like quite a conversation.