Highlights from 2012: Great Bustards

Great Bustards (Otis tarda), Nature Protection Area in Brandenburg
(north of Saxony, and about halfway between Leipzig and Berlin) ,
March 30, 2012 (display period).

These birds are part one the last breeding populations in Germany. The male on the  left has initiated a courtship display...

...and now in full display, a.k.a. "foam bath"!

Highlights from 2012: Bluethroat

I have recently acquired photos taken by Michael Schulz of some nice birds he has seen within Saxony last year, and I would like to share some of the birds which I also had the opportunity to view while birding together.

Today I will start with some nice pics of a cooperative Bluethroat (Blaukehlchen in German):

Luscinia svecica (cyanecula),  male, March 31, 2012, Stoehna

This male was singing his heart out in typical habitat where Bluethroats are found in Saxony: marshy lake border with reeds with nearby trees, such as willow. This is the L. s. cyanecula subspecies of south/central Europe with the white breast dot. Besides the bright blue bib, bordered below by narrow black and white bands, and then a thicker rusty-red band, notable field marks include the strong white supercilium (eyebrow) and rusty-red tail base (better seen below). Interesting to note from the photo below, is the presence of several buff-tinged underwing-coverts.

Luscinia svecica (cyanecula),  male, March 31, 2012, Stoehna

Cannot wait until spring returns, and these brilliant fellows follow in its wake!

Gray Partridges, a nice Brambling, and 1000+ Geese!

The weather this past Saturday was windy, snowing most of the morning, feeling like the Siberian tundra. In the beginning I questioned myself whether deciding to dress up and go out birding was a good idea or not...

Then the birds showed up; starting with a small group of 3 Bullfinches, and following closely behind them was a flock of 9 Yellowhammers. At the same location (by Schladitzer Lake) were 2 more "first of year" (FOY) birds: a single Hawfinch (giving unusually pleasing views from a low tree branch nearby) and an adult White-tailed Eagle. It appears that Velvet Scoters are still in unusually high numbers around Saxony, and today this lake held exactly 20 individuals.

We (Michael, Ashwin and Andreas...or as we like to call ourselves now, "the Fantastic Four") spent a large part of the day searching fields for geese and swans (found one large group consisting of 175 Mutes, but no luck on the Whoopers) and geese. Along the way we came across many raptors in search of field mice, including at least   6 Rough-legged Hawks (larger number this winter than usual I'm told), 4 Kestrels, 5 Red Kites, 2 Hen Harriers, 1 Peregrine Falcon, and 20+ Common Buzzards. We also found several large flocks of songbirds, most notably a single flock of 300+! Fieldfares (along with several much smaller flocks and singletons here and there), 2 different flocks of Linnet with 100-120 birds each, and a smaller flock of Field Sparrows with 6 Reed Buntings mixed in. But the spectacle of the day (though not the best bird necessarily) were the flocks of wild geese. The first group we came by was far off, consisted of Bean Geese only (we believed) and was only about 500 birds...then we found the MOTHERLOAD of geese! 3 major flocks of 200-500 birds each, across one large field, for an estimated total of 1200+ Bean (~90%) and Greater White-fronted (~10%) Geese!

The best spot of the day though (which produced my favorite birds) was along the shore of Seelhausen Lake. Upon getting out of the car we scared up a flock of 5 Gray Partridges! This was a lifer for me actually, and so of course I was glad to refind them creeping towards a path shortly before flushing across the path and disappearing into the tall grass by the lakeside. Shortly later, while those with scopes were scanning through huge rafts of Tufted Ducks and Common Pochards for anything out of the ordinary I spotted a quite-closely perched adult Goshawk (so large it was probably a female) with her lunch pinned to the post she was perched on by those incredible talons...a partridge! (Guess there WERE at least 6 beforehand...)
In the lake were additionally 3 pairs of Goosanders, 21 Red-crested Pochards (12 male, 9 female), a pair of Wigeon, and several pairs of Goldeneye as usual.
Heading back to the car, all but completely frozen head to toe, we were greated by a gorgeous Great Gray Shrike.

The last bird of interest for the day was a single Brambling, discovered in small flock of Greenfinches perched in a tree.

Sunny Day North of Leipzig: RB Merg, RL Hawks, and lots of Finches

Today I joined my Saxon birding pals Ashwin and Michael, as well as a new face to me (but another avid Saxon birder like Michael) Andreas. Together we investigated the lake country north of Leipzig, concentrating around the famous Seelhausener See (on the border of the state of Saxon-Anhalt):

The weather was sunny and cold; both hindrances to lengthy, focused scanning by the waterside through raft upon raft of ducks to pick out the unusual ones...for example the 2 drake Scaup we had today among several hundred Tufted Ducks and Common Pochards!

We missed out target bird (Great Northern Diver) but we did have 2 Black-throated and 2 Red-throated Loons at one lake (name is disputable among the Saxon birders, hehe) and another single Red-throated at Seelhausener See.

For what the sun did to the visibility on the lakes for finding rare loons, etc., it made up for by seemingly inducing the appearance of winter songbirds in flocks, as summarized in the list below.

Here is a list of highlights:

2    Scaup (both an adult and young male)
2    Wigeon (a pair)
1    Common Scoter
3    Velvet Scoters
1    Red-breasted Merganser (hen, very rare this far from a coastal area!)
18  Smew (scattered sightings of 1-6 birds from several lakes)
30  Goosanders
2    Black-throated Loon
3    Red-throated Loon
2    Rough-legged Hawks
8    Red Kites
1    Sparrow Hawk
2    Kestrels 
1    Kingfisher 
1    Nuthatch 
1    Great Grey Shrike
10+   Mistle Thrush
1    Willow Tit
4+  Goldcrest
1    Reed Bunting 

9    Twite (lifer for Ashwin and me)

300-400   Linnet (single huge flock!) 
3    Common Redpolls
 also several flocks of Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Siskin all over. 

Good birding to all,
Steve

P.S.: Yesterday morning (Jan 11) I had another flock of Waxwings at Albert Platz in Dresden (though not the same tree); this time it was a large flock of ~50-60! I just heard today of up to 200 were reported from Grosser Garten in Dresden, so I have to get myself there soon, hopefully tomorrow, to investigate.

First 2013 Trip - Little Gull and lots of Waterfowl

Last Sunday (Jan. 6th) was my first true birding outing of 2013.

Two days before that, I had the luck of coming across a small flock (7-10) Waxwings, located first by ear from the top of a tree standing near Albertplatz in the Neustadt of Dresden! Michael Schulz once told me that one of the 2 best spots in Saxony for this species is the Grosser Garten ("Big Garden") in Dresden, especially in winter! (The other is in Torgau area in NW Saxony, just FYI.)

The weather was damp and windy, making it feel much colder than the temperature reading would indicate, but fortunately the hindering rain held off until we were 99.9% finished and wrapping things up. Michael Schulz (the Saxon birding guru), Ashwin Mohan and I headed out just over the border of Saxony into the state Saxon-Anhalt to the Geisetal area (famous for the largest established breeding colony of Bee-eaters in Germany, with over 10 breeding pairs estimated in 2010 and probably more this past year).

Gärnitz:
Overall a good selection of waterfowl and 1 nice rarity: an adult Little Gull was moving around within a large gull flock of mostly Herring and Common Gulls, but also with one young Caspian Gull mixed in as well. Other birds of note include:
1 Scaup (hen), 1 Gadwall (drake), 1 Common Teal (drake), a few Goldeneyes and many Pochards, Tufted Ducks, and Coots.
A Peregrine Falcon stole the show for a short while as he/she zoomed by scaring up all the gulls, while Michael was trying to get a photo of the Little Gull!

Geisetalsee:
50+ Velvet Scoters (this is an unusually large number, so I was told and can believe, and probably is not a good sign for the world's oceans along with the recent sightings of Razorbills off the coast as far south as Florida, on the west side of the Atantic.)
3 Black-throated Divers were lifers for Ashwin and I, and so it was fortunate that we had good views of them when they were at the surface.
3 more Scaup (1 drake, 2 hens)
2 Common Mergansers (both hens)
20 Smew!
150+ Goldeneye, and several hundreds of Pochards and Tufted Ducks.
We also swept the Grebes here:
2-3 Slavonian (the rarest), 2 Red-throated, 2 Least, 1 Black-throated, and several Great Crested Grebes.

Rundstädter See:
1 Common Scoter, 2 Red-crested Pochards were of note (and new for the day) here.

Also reported this day, though not seen by us, in another part of Saxony was a Yellow-billed Loon (the last species I need for my lifelist!)...very cool and rare bird; hope it sticks around until Saturday at least!

Happy birding in 2013 to all!

Best regards,
Steve