Rooks - de råkada bara vara där

My actual plan today was to bike to "Falckensteiner Strand", a beach North of Kiel, enjoy the sunshine (it's kind of rare here!) and take som pictures of the birds I happen to encounter.
Well, I had only biked 500 m along Kiel's busiest street, the "Westring", when I saw several rooks foraging on the traffic island in the middle on the street... and well, I never got to Falckensteiner Strand.



While I was standing there, the call of a kestrel suddenly caught my ear - and yes, indeed, there was a common kestrel being mobbed and chased by this flock of rooks. Wouldn't want to change place with that guy. :-) Unfortunately what the ear and the eye caught, the camera did not... or in other words, don't look for the kestrel on the pic below.


For the record: It's not like I biked 500m and that was it - I actually made it to Kiel airport which is situated about 7 km North of Kiel, but by then it was 5:30 pm and I had to head back because my bike light needs new batteries... Sunset here is at 6:20 pm by the way. On my way I passed the Kiel Canal (Nord-Ostsee-Kanal in German), the 98 km long canal linking the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. The district Kiel-Holtenau is situated at the Baltic Sea entrance.


Bird of the day:
Rook -- Råka -- Saatkrähe -- Corbeau freux -- Corvus frugilegus

Winter wren, Schrevenpark

One of many many winter wrens in Kiel. This one was photographed in Schrevenpark, 20th September. As I said before, they are all over the place, although now they are less conspicuous, because they only rarely take to singing nowadays. Still, often enough they utter their characteristic staccato call, and that's how we found this one.


Bird of the day:
Gärdsmyg -- Zaunkönig -- Winter Wren -- Troglodyte mignon -- Winterkoning (NL) -- Troglodytes troglodytes

Birds of the Equinox, Kiel - or: Geese, geese, geese...

This is my contribution to "Birds of the Equinox"! As last week was really busy, I chose a very accessible location for this event - Schrevenpark, Kiel, situated just 200 m south from where I live.

This park appears to be an eldorado for geese, wild and escaped ones. I really should read up on when an originally escaped bird can be considered wild, because some of the rare species appear to have bred there (e.g. bar-headed goose). Apart from that they produce interesting hybrids... Like, for instance, this family here, a greylag goose (Anser anser) and a chinese goose (domesticated form of swan goose, Anser cygnoides) and their hybrid offspring:

The family (greylag goose in the back, chinese goose in the middle and their offspring in front)

Chinese goose

Hybrid Greylag goose/Chinese goose

Another goose that does not really belong here is the bar-headed goose. I counted nine of them this time (although I am pretty sure that there are considerably more of them in Schrevenpark). I am pretty sure that this population derives from escaped geese, but it seems like they are breeding out in the wild now.


This barnacle goose here is the only one of its kind in Schrevenpark. As is the taiga bean goose shown beneath.

Weisswangengans (Nonnengans, vitkindad gås, barnacle goose, Branta leucopsis)
Saatgans (sädgås, taiga bean goose, Anser fabalis)

And no, that's not it yet. These egyptian geese are part of "Schrevenpark Goose Melting pot" as well:


Egyptian goose (Nilgans, nilgås, Alopochen aegyptiaca)

Last but not least, there were these whitish geese, mostly gathering with Canada geese - I suspect that they are snow geese (Schneegans, snögås, Chen caerulescens?) or some hybrid form, but I am not sure.




O.K., but now let's leave the geese behind, as I did actually see other birds as well, believe it or not. For eaxmple, about 20 black-headed gulls (Lachmöwe, skrattmås, larus ridibundus), all in winter plumage already, were around as well.




A species that I always find particularly fun to watch here is the common moorhen (Teichhuhn, rörhöna, Gallinula chloropus). As I have reported before on this blog, they breed downtown in Kiel, in Lake Kleiner Kiel, and possibly here as well. In contrast to the few ones I observed in Sweden, these here are not particulary shy and keen on hiding all the time... :-) Although they don't feel very comfortable in front of a camera lens.


Apart from those species it was pretty quiet in Schrevenpark that evening. A few blackbirds, a carrion crow, some wood pigeons including one juvenile bird, a blue tit, a great tit, some winter wrens, a coot, the obligatory "park mallards" and that was it. It was still fun and a welcome change to work, though. I'll leave you with some pics of Schrevenpark then...

Birds of the Equinox - please participate!

Birds of the Equinox is a project to document birdlife during the September 22 equinox. For participation in Europe, all you need to do is to watch birds (15 minutes to several hours, just as you like) between Tue 22nd september, 11:19 a.m. and Wed 23rd september 11:19 a.m. (The actual equinox is on Tue 23rd 11:19 p.m.). Note: All times here are specified for central European Summer time.

You can find more information, including other time zones, here.

Count me in! :-) Kiel is going to be a part of Equinox this year!

A long walk in Hansta and Norra Järvafältet

Yesterday my friend Anders and I had decided to get up early and follow the break of dawn at Hansta nature reserve. We weren't going birding, but looking to do some nature photography.


Hansta is home to many woodpeckers and we heard at least two species, but saw only one - the omnipresent Great Spotted Woodpecker. The lack of bird sightings was however more than compensated for by the amazing forest scenery, clear air and the photo friendly autumn light.


We ended up spending almost eight hours walking around and exploring the variety of the nature reserve. A great, but somewhat exhausting day.

Bird of the day:
Större hackspett -- Buntspecht -- Great Spotted Woodpecker -- Pic épeiche -- Dendrocopos major

Sifting mud to find a Rustic Bunting

It is the time of year when the birds are in migration. This means that you get all sorts of birds passing through on their journey south. It is an excellent opportunity to see birds that otherwise would require you to dedicate part of your vacation to see.

Rustic Bunting (Videsparv, Emberiza rustica) is one of those birds and starting from last week, the reports of local sightings have increased. Today I figured I'd try my luck and headed out to Ågesta to follow up on several sightings reported yesterday of possibly as many as four individuals.

Ågesta is quite large, but all reports were centered around a marshland patch called Pumphusängen. I know the spot from before and it is home to breeding Reed Buntings, so finding resting Rustic Buntings there made sense.

Of course I found nothing - one lonely Reed Bunting, but that was it in terms of Emberizas.



Although the weren't that many birds overall to see, I still could enjoy several raptors in the sky and a young White-tailed Eagle even passed by close enough to snap some pictures.


When I got to Pumphusängen I realized that they has prepared the area to reduce the overgrowth in order to restore it to the original marshy quality. That meant that essentially I would have to sift through a gigantic mud field to try to find the bird.

Somehow it seems that the majority of the birds you really want to see are hiding in a mud field around here. I haven't done any statistics, but I bet that if would go through this blog and count the posts relating to sightings of rare or temporary birds, you would find us in, or next to, a mud field in almost all of them! There are many really nice and scenic places around here, but no, they have to go for the mud fields. Why!

Bird of the day: White-tailed Eagle -- Havsörn -- Seeadler -- Pygargue à queue blanche -- Haliaeetus albicilla

Saturday afternoon at Angarnsjöängen

So,
for the first time in ages we went birding yesterday. Claudia flew up from a rainy Kiel and we hit the road in a rental car and headed out to Angarnsjöängen to enjoy a sunny, early autumn afternoon. It was great and I think we both realized how much we miss doing this together.

Angarnsjöängen is one of the premier places to go birding in the near-Stockholm area. It is very accessible and going by car it's less than 30min from the city center to get there.

Birding wise it was a good day, but not extraordinary by any means. I guess we have to wait for October and the semi-regular influx of Siberian rarities for anything extraordinary to blow in on the low pressures. Among the highlights from yesterday were a decent mix of waders, like Common Sandpiper (Drillsnäppa, Actitis hypoleucos), Dunlin (Kärrsnäppa, Calidris alpina) and Ruff (Brushane, Philomachus pugnax). In the sky above we saw several raptors in migration.


Due to the long distances invloved at Angarnsjöängen we really didn't get any good shots of birds, so I'll leave you with an empty bird of the day.