News · 30. Januar 2016

Yesterday I was disappointed by the rather elusive Syrian Woodpecker near Kronach and furthermore annoyed, when I found out later on that the bird showed nicely only one hour after I had left. In the end I turned out to be the only one who didn´t see that woodpecker. Reason enough to try it again. Today. Unlike yesterday the weather wasn´t nice at all, it was windy, cold, the light was very bad and later on it also rained a bit. Additionally I was the only birder there, since the last ones...

News · 29. Januar 2016

Yesterday I said that I was going to go to Kronach, in order to see the Syrian Woodpecker, which is to my knowledge the first record of this species in Germany. And so I took in the morning the first for me possible train and finally arrived at 1 pm. To that time anything looked still fine and the sun was shining brightly. Nevertheless, soon afterwards I met the first birders who had also come for the woodpecker (the most travelled more than 300 kilometers) and I was told that it didn´t look...

News · 28. Januar 2016

It has been quite a while but today I returned to my patch. Altogether I spent two hours outside enjoying the winter sun. While I had originally planned to visit all parts of the site, in order to get a complete overview of the birdlife there, I soon focused on taking pictures, because the light was so beautiful and most birds were showy too. All in all it was rather quite, but I think that had to be expected. Tomorrow I plan a trip to Kronach (60 km from Bamberg) to see the Syrian Woodpecker...

News · 26. Januar 2016

Normally I´m cycling to Bamberg every day and on my way I also pass the harbour of Bamberg. While the large harbour basins don´t seem to be the best place for seeing good birds over the most time of the year, in the winter regularly gulls can be seen there. When I speak of gulls I mean Black-headed Gulls, which are by far the most common species here. Usually I´m not paying them too much attention, since there are only seldom interesting gulls among them. Well, until today. After the cold...

News · 24. Januar 2016

Now all quarry ponds are completely frozen and the waterfowl is now mainly found on the Main, which is not always well approachable. Therefore it wasn´t easy to decide where to go instead. Because a trip to any of my favourite sites would most likely have ended with no more than ten species, I turned my attention to a site that I had neglected over the last years, the Luisenhain in the south of Bamberg. The grove is mostly interesting in the spring, since it is perhaps the best place around...

News · 22. Januar 2016

Did you ever wonder what birds might just fly over your house, while you are sitting at home? I´m sure that most birders do. In fact most birds are passing over without being noticed. However thanks to GPS-Tracking it is now possible to literally follow the migration route of a couple of birds. This also means that some birds which are extremly rare can be recorded, even though no birder has seen them. Exactly this happened in the autumn of 2015. A few days ago I was surfing a bit on the...

News · 20. Januar 2016

Since almost two weeks I was very busy during the week and had therefore no time for birdwatching. Nevertheless this afternoon I had finally two spare hours and also the weather looked rather fine for a short birding trip. I chose the Oberhaider Baggersee, where an obviously long staying Velvet Scoter had been reported a few days ago. However it seemed that I had been a bit too optimistic, since I had simply neglected the fact that the temperature hasn´t climbed above 0 °C for a few days....

News · 17. Januar 2016

Traditionally the second weekend of January is the date for the mid-winter waterfowl census in Germany. However in the districts of Bamberg and Haßberge almost 50 quarry ponds need to be checked, an almost impossible task for only four counters. Despite that we get some support from outside I was asked to check the quarry ponds north of Bamberg. Of course I agreed. Since I was busy yesterday, I went this afternoon. Fortunately it had been snowing all the night and the temperature had dropped...

News · 10. Januar 2016

Originally I had planned to visit the "Sander Baggersee Ost" on last Wednesday. Nevertheless, since I had had a lot more spare time than usually, I spontaneously changed my plans and went to the "Garstadter Seen" instead. So it isn´t very difficult to guess what lake I might have visited today. As normally the lake held some interesting waterfowl like the 14 Goldeneyes, which can always be seen on this lake in the winter. Apart from that there were two adult Caspian Gulls, most likely the same...

News · 06. Januar 2016

Since I had a lot more spare time than usually, I went to the "Garstadter Seen", where I hoped to see the Slavonian Grebes that had been reported a few days earlier. I started with the observation tower near the parking ground, from where the front part of the site can be overlooked. There were hundreds of Greylag, some Tufted Ducks, Goosanders and other typical waterfowl. Fortunately the observation tower has a small diary with the latest sightings, which included also the note about three...