As I’m reminiscing on last summer’s trip to Iceland (and working up videos, etc), I’m uncovering some photos that just make me smile. On the cliffs above Reynisfjara, a black sand beach with impressive caves and balsatic columns outside Vik, on Iceland’s southern shore, dozens of puffins were nesting.

These pudgy little birds were impressively fast and nimble, and very hard to catch with a camera. They’d hurl themselves off the cliffs and dart like feathered bullets out to the cold, grey North Atlantic, and then return, presumably full of fish, to nests hidden in the deep grass that clung to the rocky slopes.