In some of the most exciting news to come out of Iceland this week, it turns out that reporters at The Reykjavík Grapevine know absolutely fuck all about birds. And yes, we do mean actual birds. We know plenty about picking up the ladies at bars, thank you very much. In fact, maybe that’s why we’re lacking in areas such as ornithology. There’s only so much information that can be stored in the heads of studs like us at any one time. Sue us.
Even so, we do in fact offer our heartfelt apologies for any FAKE NEWS that may have been spread this week in our article about the declining falcon population in Iceland. Upon publishing, the Falcon Gang worldwide rose up, with numerous e-mails and comments telling us about massive inaccuracies and ill-researched claims in the article, including the fact that the photo we chose was not actually the type of bird we wrote about in the article. We have disciplined the journalist who chose it accordingly.
Believe us, it wasn’t a prank, and we weren’t trying to be funny. We would never do that. Literally everyone knows that we aren’t funny.
Falcon Gang attacks
Anyway, it turns out that ptarmigans don’t eat fish. It also turns out that ptarmigans are a type of bird, and not a type of dinosaur or a five-sided shape. Who knew? Not us. Sorry, we were on Tinder.
Also, a falcon is not an osprey. This seemed pretty obvious to me (apparently not to the author!): I thought everyone knew that Osprey was an outdoor backpack brand based out of Colorado—nothing at all like Falcón, which is a state in Venezuela. But not everyone who writes for the Grapevine can be as sharp as I am. Sorry again.
In a bid to claw our way back from this state of humiliation—we’ve had ten teams of ten people sorting through emails and Facebook comments just this morning—the Grapevine has decided to launch an exciting new project: The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Official Guide To Common Icelandic Birds. That’s right! We know we said we didn’t know anything about birds just now, but we’ve been Googling stuff all night. All. Night. We haven’t slept and are starting to hallucinate ptarmigans all over the office.
Grapevine in disgrace
Starting next week, we’ll be telling you all about puffins and how they DON’T eat fish (see, we have learnt from our mistakes—birds literally never eat fish!), northern fulmars and their hatred of seawater, and the common starling, which *checks smudged notes scrawled on back of hand* has a wingspan of 5.5 metres. Above, you will find a handy guide to what those birds look like.
Once again, we profusely apologise to the Falcon Gang—many of which, apparently, read the Grapevine.
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