Weather: warm and humid, with scattered rain showers (some with lightning and strong winds).
Highlights of the morning:
Stöhna (South of Leipzig, Saxony):
- A Honey Buzzard flew over the road in front of us and into the trees, on the way to Stöhna from southern Leipzig.
- a juv. each of Stonechat, Whinchat, and Bluethroat
- my first sitting (and silent) Wryneck!
- a successful family of Common Crane with 2 young!
- Shorebirds have started their southward migration for a few weeks now, and here is what we found today: 30+ Common Snipe, 20+ Ruff, 12+ Little Ringed Plovers, Greenshank, Wood and Green Sandpipers, and 2 Common Sandpipers. This is supposedly the best time of year for Temminck's Stints in the area, but no luck today...
- 4 juv. Marsh Harriers mixed in with several adults.
Geiseltal (Saxony-Anhalt):
- A swarm of 50+ post-breeding Bee-eaters
- a out-of-place Greater White-fronted Goose (maybe wounded as it looked healthy otherwise).
- Interestingly, a Bar-headed Goose and a Black Swan (no, not Natalie Portman!) in the same location...fugitive travel buddies?
I would like to just briefly apologize for the lack of updates on the blog this year so far; it is not that I haven't been birding! On the contrary, Ashwin and I have seen so many birds this year (I have already added 60+ lifers since March!) I felt that I could not keep up with my blog along with the increased workload of my PhD studentship. These sort of things happen, right?
But in the future, I hope to at least be able to write such short highlights of interesting sightings or findings.
I will work on posting a review of the spring/summer highlights soon, as well as my recent, life-changing trip to northeast Iceland with pics, so stay tuned!
Good birding!
