Rare migrating birds in the Alps

The Alps is not a rarity hotspot. It is not now. It will never be. That's just how it is and I have found my peace with it.

But yesterday, TWO people phoned me to tell me that there were some Ferruginous Duck (Moorenten; Aythya nyroca) down on the River Inn between the Innsbruck Airport and the village of Völs. Some of us had to work so dashing off to the river for a country tick yesterday afternoon was just not going to happen.

But I did pray for bad weather overnight (to keep them from migrating on...)

I awoke to cloud and snow - yippee!

Needless to say I was late for work, but I did get a couple of horrible photos ;-)

Male Fudge Duck showing off his white eye

The ducks are somewhere there in the background. The Innsbruck Airport is 2m behind me.

After that start, I was in a bird mood and so took the afternoon off to go birding with Paul and my father in law. We picked up two male Goosanders and a female as well as lots of wagtails hawking over the River Inn in Mils and a single Chifchaf. A search for the Great Grey Shrikes Paul had seen in the morning was fruitless, but we did pick up a flock of 49 Lapwing, 5 Golden Plover and a Common Gull (all three being Tirol ticks for me) on the fields in Thaur. We also picked up our first swallow of the spring (a Crag Martin)

Here is a photo of a Golden Plover a very very long way away. If you want to see real photos of Golden Plovers then you should visit Chris Photo Nature.

A shot of the fields in Thaur where the Lapwings, Golden Plovers and Common Gull were. This gives you an idea of the power of digiscoping because the plover shot above was taken at this same point and the birds are in the lighter brown area between the first white field and the white field behind it - way too small to make out on this photo.

Spring is in the air!

Happy birding,

Dale

April fool's and wildlife

Being the first day of April, I thought I would add something along that theme. Last year, BBC produced a wonderful April Fool's video on migrating and flying penguins. This - for me - was an absolute classic and was so well made.



This morning I eagerly took myself off to youtube to see what they had come up with this year. only to be thoroughly disappointed with the "shark whale" thing they put together. the "financial crisis" has obviously had an effect on creative and "unnecessary" spending over at the BBC. Oh well, I will have to make do with watching last year's again.

This morning I stopped in at Baggersee to see if there were any exciting ducks about. Nothing.
But I did see my first chifchaf of the year, and a lightning blue Common Kingfisher lit up my day ;-)

Happy April!
Dale

Weekend birding and Autumn migrants

The weather was lovely on Saturday morning and so I headed down to the Inzinger Gaissau to see if any new migrants had turned up.


Last weekend had delivered two Wigeons (Pfeifenten), about five Pochard (Tafelenten), and a very shy group of five Teal (Krickenten). We also heard a Water Rail (Wasserralle) calling from the western-most reed beds near the railway line, and the day before, I had seen a Cormorant (Kormoran) for the first time here.

This weekend, however, there were no signs of the Wigeons, Pochards or Teal (they seem to have just been passing through), but there were unusually large numbers of Mallard (Stockenten) and a Cormorant fishing about. The Little Grebe (Zwergtaucher) numbers have now gone down again, after a peak at about 30-35 individuals at the end of September.

(a poor photo of Wigeons - they really were playing hard to get! this photo was taken in a rush, looking through a bush as they buzzed by)

There are still some Barn Swallows (Rauchswalben) about and the Chifchafs (Zilzalp) are still calling. It seems rather late for them to still be here - there are already considerable numbers of Barn Swallows in South Africa 6000km away!

The most interesting sighting of the day was groups of up to 50 Skylarks (Feldlerchen) feeding in the Maize stubble fields just to the south of the pond. This is the same area where scores of Yellow Wagtails (Shafstelzen) were hanging out in the freshly ploughed fields in spring.

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

autumn migration in full swing

Migration time is, once again, an absolute fascination to me.

I cannot seem to find a swift anywhere but the swallows are filling the skies. On Sunday (7 Sept), I awoke to streams of Sand Martins (Riparia riparia, Uferschwalbe) zipping past the roof window above our bed. Later on that day, we came across a flock of about 300 Sand Martins circling and feeding over Kematen.


There are also lots of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica, Rauchschwalbe) about. I expected to see hoardes of them sitting on telephone lines along the fields, but so far they have seemed rather intent on moving through and feeding. There have been lots flying about slightly higher than normal, feeding at about 200-400m or so. But they always seem to be moving.

And I cannot believe just how many Phylloscopus warblers there are about at the moment. On Sunday we went for a little wander about the lake in Seefeld. It seemed like every second reed stem and every third willow branch had a couple of Willow Warblers (Fitis) or such like dripping off of them! There are still some Wood Warblers (Waldlaubsänger) and Chifchafs (Zilzalp) about, but they are uncharacteristically silent, and I haven't seen a Bonelli's Warbler (Phylloscopus bonelli, Berglaubsänger) in a while. I am still hoping for an Icterine Warbler (Hippolais icterina, Gelbspötter) to show itself on the way through - I dipped on them on the Spring migration this year, only hearing them a couple of times but never managing to see one.

This weekend, I will finally get to do some ringing in Tirol! We are going to be setting up nets as part of the GEO biodiversity day (GEO Tag der Artenvielfelt) along the Isar River near Scharnitz. Not sure what (or if) we will catch, but it is on the forest edge so I am hoping for some of those little Phylloscopus, but some tits would be nice too. Apparently, the tits are notorious biters (especially the Blue Tit Cyanistes caeruleus Blaumeise). I am looking forward to seeing just how true this is or whether it is just a (sub)urban legend. I can't imagine they bite anything like the notorious Thickbilled Weaver (Amblyospiza albifrons, Weissstirnweber, the photo is from MBoy68's Flickr photostream).

It is bound to be a lot of fun so, if you are in the area and are interested in taking part in the various activities, then just check out the official website and come along!