June 15-16 Report: Black Stork, Bee-eaters, & a strange Phylloscopus

There was too much birding activity this past weekend, so I will just give a selection of the sightings this time...

Time: Saturday, June 15
Location: Ratzener Teiche (Ratzen Lakes), near Lohsa (within the Oberlausitz Biosphere Reserve)
Weather: sunny early, with partial cloudiness increasing from 10:00 to cloudy around 12:00. Warm, ~25°C.

Great Bittern: 2-3 (2 heard in different locations, and later 1 flew overhead in a circle and then took off to another distant pond)
Garganey: 3
Common Tern - 6+ (at least 3 pairs)
Coot: 15
Great Crested Grebe: 10-15
Crane: 2
Grey Heron: 1
Osprey: 1
Black Kite: 1
Red Kite: 2
Common Buzzard: 5
Marsh Harrier: 8
Eurasian Kestrel: 2
Long-tailed Tit: 13 (single flock in Lohsa)
Yellow Wagtail: 1
White Wagtail: x
Skylark: x
Reed Bunting: 2
Yellowhammer: x
Cuckoo: 2
Red-backed Shrike: 2 (a pair)
Penduline Tit: 4 (found one nest)
Chiffchaff, Blackcap, and Willow, Eurasian Reed, and Great Reed Warblers: many

In the evening, after returning to Dresden (and taking a short break), Ashwin and I headed to Dresden Neustadt, on the north shore of the Elbe. A fellow American birder, living and working in Dresden for the moment, who found my blog and contacted me after arriving in Dresden, let me in on the location of a Tawny Owl roost in a hole of a large tree on the grounds of the "Japanese Palace". Thanks to the map he sent us, we had no problem locating the gorgeous, red-phase Tawny just before dusk, two days prior, and even enjoyed watching it take of for an evening buffet!
On this evening around 8:30pm, about an hour before getting dark, we found the owl perched in the same spot, but this time Ashwin had brought his scope and camera. Our friend and colleague at the lab, Ahmad Omar, joined us to enjoy the owl and practice photography. One minute we were not keeping an eye on the owl, chatting, and then the next minute we go to check, and it wasn't there...and like before, it probably went right over our heads!
Unfortunately I don't have any picks at the moment, but keep checking in the near future for some nice photos of Tawny (the ingenious name we decided for the bird).

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Time: Sunday, June 16
Location: area around Werbelin Lake, north of Leipzig
Weather: cloudy and cooler than previous day, ~15-20°C.

Black Stork: 1 soaring bird, an overdo LIFER!
Red-necked Grebe: 4 (2 adults+2 juveniles)
Lesser Black-backed Gulls: 5
Mediterranean Gull: 20+ pairs!
Little Ringed Plover: 2
White-tailed Eagle: 1
European Bee-eater: 6 gorgeous birds, plu-pluing overhead at a Sand Martin colony by an old coke mine.
Nightingale: 1 heard
Red-backed Shrike: 4
Grasshopper Warbler: 2 dueling (duetting?) at same location.
Linnet: 2
Corn Bunting: 3, FOYs

Also interesting was a bird which gave a song, delivered several times, that began like a Chiffchaff and ended with a downward, spiraling Willow Warbler song! Upon further investigation, Ashwin found this site, which is a nice review of Phylloscopus warblers which can switch songs in various ways (4 examples given, with further links). I think the bird we heard very well fits the description of "Examples 2 & 3: Willow Warbler's song incorporating rapidly delivered Chiffchaff-like notes". Here is a link to an example of a similar mixed song uploaded on Xeno-canto.org, from Germany also. Unfortunately we did not find the bird, as it was quite far off and did not stick around or long. But it seems likely it was a Willow warbler singing with Chiffchaff-like notes.
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And now for a few bird pics from Saturday:

Penduline Tit nest...aint it adorable?! [photo by Ashwin Mohan]

Ashwin enjoying his new scope, id-ing a distant tern.

the Great Bittern that circled directly over our heads (like it was checking us out), and then made a bee line to a another distant lake/pond. [photo by Ashwin Mohan]