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.
No comments:
Post a Comment