European Animals Hungary and Iceland

Wildlife of Hungary

Hungary is a small landlocked central European country. It shares its borders with Austria to the west, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Slovakia to the north, and Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia to the south or southwest. Hungary is dominated by the great lowland expanses called the Little Hungarian Plain and the Great Hungarian Plain. The Danube River cuts through the center of the country from north to south.

Places to See Wild Animals

Hortobagy National Park is located in the northeast Great Plains. It is the largest protected wildlife area in the country. Here you can see horses, many species of smaller mammals, falcons, cranes, bustards, and geese.

Aggtelek National Park is located in the northeast region of Aggtelek Karst. It is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site and has amazing caves.

Visitors can see lynxes, wolves, fire salamanders, deer, wild boar, kingfishers, swallowtails, and grouses.

Ferto-Hansag National Park is located in northwest Gyor-Moson-Sopron county, straddling a large lake near the border with Austria. It is home to herons, common spoonbills, geese, great egrets, and many species of mammals and fish.

Danube-Drava National Park is located in the southwestern Danube and Drava floodplains. There are many nature trails and springs.

You can see deer, boar, black storks, white-tailed eagles, and some unique insects.

Native Animals

Eurasian otters are also known as Old World otters. These are a species of semi-aquatic mammals native to Eurasia. They live in freshwater bodies like lakes, ponds, and canals.

Eurasian wolves are a subspecies of gray wolves native to Europe and Russia. 

European pine martens are a species of mustelid native to Europe.

Przewalski’s horses are also called Mongolian wild horses. They are a species of wild horses native to the steppes of Central Asia. They were introduced to Hungary.

Moose are locally referred to as elk. They are a species of New World deer native to much of the Northern Hemisphere.

European badgers are a species of mustelids native to Europe.

Carpathian lynxes are a subspecies of the best-known Eurasian lynxes, They are native to Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovakia.

Eurasian pygmy shrews are native to a large part of Eurasia. 

Birds

Sakir falcons are the national birds of Hungar, Mongolia, and the United Arab Emirates. They’re a large species of falcons native to Central Europe and Central Asia.

Great bustards are a species of birds in the bustard family, They live in open grasslands and farmlands mostly in Europe.

Great white pelicans are native to small areas of Europe, Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa,

Endangered Animals

Eurasian lynx

European hamster

Great bustard

Red-breasted goose

Hungarian meadow viper

Wildlife of Iceland

Iceland is a Nordic Island country that lies between the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. The wildlife of the country survives in a hostile landscape.

Icelandic horses were brought to Iceland more than 1,000 years ago. They can be seen all across the country.

Arctic foxes make their homes in the remote corners of the Eastfjords and the Westfjords. These foxes are brown or gray in the summer and white in the winter.

Reindeer might not be native to Iceland but they can be found in wild herds in the southeast and eastern parts of Iceland.

Icelandic Sheep can be seen everywhere from late spring to autumn.

European rabbits live in the wild and can be found in large numbers in Reykjavik.

Icelandic sheepdogs have fluffy coats and curled tails. A majority of them can be found in the countryside.

Birds

Whooper swans are the largest birds in Iceland. They live here year-round and during the winter months, their numbers increase in the small lagoons and bays.

Gannets make their homes on the high seas cliffs with the largest colony being on Eldey Island.

Large numbers of seagulls can be found around Olafsvik, in the west of Iceland.

Snow buntings are regular visitors to the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland in the wintertime with their summer residence in the south of Iceland. Hiding from the elements they can be seen at the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon under the road bridge in the southeast of Iceland.

Eider ducks are lovely ground nesting birds that can be seen around Iceland, They are found in small groups and feed on mussels, crabs, and seaweed.

Marine Animals

Seals live around the coast of Iceland raising their young in the freezing waters. Among them are harbor seals and gray seals. You can also spot harp seals, bearded seals, and ring seals with the best place to seal watch being the Vatnsnes Peninsula in northwest Iceland.

The rarest seals are the hooded seals ranging from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada to Svalbard, Norway.

Atlantic puffins can be seen at Latrabjarg in the Westfjords, the Westman Islands off the south coast, and at Hafnarholmi. They can be seen on land from May through early August.

Iceland is one of the best places for whale watching with tours starting at Reykjavik and Husavik in the north. You can spot minke and humpback whales.

In the Westman Islands, you can see Beluga whales at the Beluga Whale Sanctuary.

Iceland is home to six species of marine dolphins among them Atlantic White-sided dolphins, white-beaked dolphins, and short-beaked common dolphins.

Harbor porpoises are the world’s smallest marine mammals and can be seen on whale-watching tours in Iceland. Occasionally they can be seen in river estuaries.