Icelandic Animals

 For an animal lover like me, seeing Icelandic horses and sheep was a treat not because they are hard to spot, like leopards on safari, but because they are just so darn cute.

The population of Iceland is 364,134 and the #of sheep is about 800,000 - more than 2 sheep per person.

We were lucky to encounter a small flock on the road side of the fence. When I got out of the car with my camera, most of them ran away but not these two brave guys.  I am not sure how close they would have let me get before running away but they certainly didn't seem afraid.

Another day one posed for me.

And on another hike I got this nice profile shot!

There are some black sheep. And some that I would call 'Oreo sheep' as they are black on the ends with a band of white in the middle. Never got a photo of one of those.

During the summer months the sheep are entirely free range, feasting on the tall grasses of the highlands.  In the fall, they are brought down to lower elevations.  Before the hard winter sets in, they will be safely in barns like the one you can see in this photo.

Sometimes Icelandic horses and dogs are used for the round up, but the one time we saw sheep on the move, they were being 'herded' by an ATV.  Not nearly as picturesque!  

In times past, up until the 1970s, the sheep wintered over in turf barns.

Much more interesting than the modern sheep barns we saw all over Iceland.

After round up and before they go to the winter barns, sheep are herded into these circular pens called retts.  Each section is labeled with the name of a farm and the owners sort them by their 'particular facial expressions', 😀 or more precisely, by the tags in their ears.

We thought of our horse loving son, Scott,  as we drove past field after field with these adorable Icelandic horses.  

This color combination is my favorite.

Loved seeing this mom and baby....mare and foal!

On our very last day in the countryside we were so lucky to find a group of horses, right by the fence, where there also happened to be a safe place to park.

We enjoyed feeding them the grass that was on our side of the fence!  It always tastes better huh?
This pretty brown guy was more interested in nibbling my pants, coat and hands than the grass I offered him.

We did become good friends anyway!

The last Icelandic 'animal' we saw was the famous 'rhino rock'.  

It does look like a rhinoceros having a drink, doesn't it?

My google map calculations indicated that a trip to the rhino rock would add about 45 minutes to our drive.  That might have been true had the road been a normal road instead of potholed, narrow and one lane.  It took us more than an hour each way to get to this rock.  Interesting formation but I'm not sure it was worth it.

Let's see, next trip to Iceland we need to see reindeer and arctic foxes and maybe some whales.