One location I wanted to visit was about 20 minutes from Keflavik International Airport but without a car, it seemed a remote possibility that I would see the island where the last great auk lived.

As it turns out, we had some extra time on the last day of my WINGS Iceland tour and our guide thought we would spend some time at the volcanic bit of land closest to Eldey Island.

We pulled into the black sand parking lot between a lighthouse and the Atlantic. Near and just off shore are large kittiwake breeding colonies. A little further off shore were lines of murres, razorbills, and puffins. Add to that, there were a movement of Manx shearwaters heading north. And beyond the bird movement, nine miles from shore, is Eldey Island.

This is the last place the great auk (Pinguinus impennis) occurred on Planet Earth. This large flightless auk once lived on both sides of the northern Atlantic.

By the early 19th century, the auk population had been severely reduced because of predation by humans.

Because the auk was becoming so rare, naturalists wanted to collect the auk before it disappeared from the earth, paradoxically pushing the great auk to extinction.

One of the last bastions of the great auk was Eldey. It was here on June 3, 1844 that the last two great auks were killed and one of the captors stepped back and crushed the last great auk egg sending the large flightless seabird into oblivion.

The extinction of the great auk is commemorated by a large sculpture by Todd McGrain, which I sketched (featured sketch).