News · 28. November 2015

This morning it was snowing all the time and so the snow has finally reached the Basin of Bamberg. Since a Pine Bunting has been found in Lower Saxony a few days ago, I wanted to look out for this species here as well. Of course you cannot expect to find such an extrem vagrant on the first try, but this really promising individual (unfortunately I haven´t yet translated it), which I had found in January, shows me that anything is possible. Even when no interesting bunting was to be found...

News · 22. November 2015

Today we got the first snow of the autumn, though there were only few snowflakes in the air before evening. My destination for today was the "Röckelein Baggersee" near Breitengüßbach, which often holds notable gatherings of geese in the winter. Unfortunately, today only "common" species like Greylag or Egyptian Geese could be spotted on the fields around the lake. There was even quite few waterfowl, though with some high-quality species: Three Shelducks and a single Red-throated Diver. It...

News · 18. November 2015

My last week was a bit disappointing viewed from the point of view of a birder. Highlights were a couple of Teals in the harbour of Bamberg and a flock of Long-tailed Tits in my garden. Nevertheless I had been looking forward to this morning, since in theory I would have had a lot of time for birding. As it turned out it was very windy this morning, even so windy that I wasn´t sure, if it really was that a good idea to spend the whole morning exposed to the wind on the shore of a lake. However...

News · 08. November 2015

Bearded Reedlings had been reported at the "Großer Wörth" a while ago and so I thought, I should try my luck. While it had still been quite foggy near Bamberg, a blue sky with almost 18 °C awaited me at the parking ground. A first glance on the reeds didn´t produce something of interest, but on the lake a lot of geese could be seen. As it turned out the most were Greylags, approximately 230. Among them I spotted also around 30 Egyptian and 10 Greater White-fronted Geese, the first ones of...

News · 04. November 2015

This morning the sun was shining brightly and all trees gleamed in a beautiful autumnal light. So it didn´t take too long until I was persuaded to a short walk to my usual site. As it turned out, mostly common birds could be seen, though it is always thrilling to scan a flock of Yellowhammers hoping for a probable Pine Bunting. There were of course some very pale individuals among them, although they all showed very much yellow and were therefore clear Yellowhammers. Nevertheless it had been a...

News · 01. November 2015

Last week I could observe a rather unusual bunting, that soon attracted some attention. There were several species, which were considered, for example Pallas's Reed Bunting or Japanese Reed Bunting. Since my pictures were too poor, a safe identification was not possible. Therefore I searched it today, in order to get perhaps better pictures of it. However today this bunting wasn´t to be found, only very few Reed Buntings could be seen. Unlike the last time a lot of waterfowl was lingering on...