Biggest Bird Blogger Convention (only counting Central European bird blogs)

Today was the great day: the largest, most dramatic, most incredible Bird Blogger Convention EVER! to take place in central europe with central european bird bloggers.

given that there only appear to be two bird bird blogs in the whole of Germany and Austria, that just means that Jochen (of Bell Tower Birding fame) and I got together.

Having just a couple of hours to entertain ourselves, we quickly darted up the Sellraintal to Kühtai to try pick up some of the high alpine birds. We were rewarded with about 12 Alpine, 20 White-winged Snowfinches and frozen hands (it was -7°C up there, after all).

It is always great to meet blogger friends... so far I have managed to meet up with Corey, Joan and Sharon, with whole piles more to go...

Happy birding,

Dale

Snowfinches are back

Every winter, hundreds of Snowfinches collect in Kühtai in large non-breeding flocks; feeding on the sunflower seeds on offer there, and sheltering from bad weather in the high mountains. I have yet to see a snowfinch below 1800m and Kühtai lies at just over 2000m.

The flock size tends to increase through the winter, reaching a peak in about February (but I'll monitor it more closely over the next winter season.

Yesterday I was up in Kühtai again for a day of glorious powder skiing and picked up the first small flocks of the season in town (as opposed to the single individuals I have been seeing in the high mountains up until now).

It is wonderful to have them back, and I look forward to take looooots of photos of them over the next few months.

If you are interested in other blog posts about snowfinches in Tirol/Austria, see here.

Happy birding,

Dale Forbes

Birds migrate at night - MoonWatch

Okay so maybe it is a silly title to give a blog post, but maybe you can come up with something better...

The spring migration is in full swing at the moment and it seems lots of bird species migrate at night. Now, this is fairly common knowledge, but what I did not realize is that you can actually see this while it is going on. This week, I have been helping out on a research project investigating migration patters of birds in the Austrian Alps, with this current phase being in the mountains of central Tirol.

So here is what we do: stare at the moon all night and see if anything flies by. Good idea, huh?
Well, I had not thought of it - I just did not expect there to be that many birds flying by your average mountain side for it to be worthwhile sitting out on the snow at 2500m for hours on end, staring down a spotting scope (as much as I do like doing that!). Anyhow, it seems that it can be fairly productive and last night over the course of a few hours we saw almost 40birds fly directly between us and the moon.



Our first go was on Sunday evening (5 April 09), where the participants got to grips with the methodology. The setting, at the Hungerburgbahn overlooking Innsbruck, was stunning and before long, we started to see birds flying past (they looked like pipits to me, but that is just a complete thumb suck).

Monday night, Silvia and I headed up to Axamer Lizum's Hoadl House (2400m asl), where we spent almost the whole night looking out for birds. It was cold. Very cold. But the bright moonlight draping the mountains was spectacular. Interestingly (and disappointing) was that we only saw two birds the whole night.
But the next morning we relished in the streaming spring sunlight and picked up a few of the really cool high-alpine species (4 white-winged snowfinch, a singing alpine accentor, displaying water pipits, and a flock of alpine choughs).




Last night we were up at Seegrube (North Park Ski Arena, overlooking Innsbruck). The first bird I saw as I walked out of the cable-car house was an alpine accentor right in front of me - this was going to be a good night! [for those of you who have not figured this out yet, I looove alpine accentors, they have got to be one of the coolest birds of the high alps, but I will leave my gushing for another time...]. We spent the late afternoon digiscoping accentors and choughs, and enjoying the stillnes of the high mountains, for everyone had left by about 5:30pm, so we had the whole place to ourselves. We started our survey at 9:20pm and carried on through to about 2am, but although it was not as cold as up at Axamer Lizum, we really felt the cold (I suppose lack of sleep will do that to you). But we were compensated by strings of birds flying by, almost all of which seemed to be flying down the Inn valley and my personal guess is that they we were seeing them flying at about 3000m asl. The birds we saw were mostly smaller passerine-sized birds, but I did see a group of 4 ducks fling close together - the quick wingbeats and size makes me think they were Teal (although I suppose they could have been Garganey, but that would be much less likely in the Alps).

What fascinates me most about this whole project is the sheer numbers of birds that must be migrating. We are looking at the moon through a telescope (25x magnification), and the moon occupies a relatively tiny portion of the night sky, so the chance that the flight path of a little bird taking it directly between us and the moon seem rather slight. Given the [relatively] large number of birds we saw last night and on Sunday at Hungerburg, I can only imagine that there really are huge numbers of birds migrating through this area - something that had not really occured to me. Certainly, the number of birds that I am seeing in my everyday life (and birding) in Tirol did not really indicate to me that the migration was in full swing. I suppose what is happening is that a good number of the migrant birds I am seeing every day are continuing on their journeys at night, and are replaced by other for the next day's shift. Either that or, the migrant we were seing at night are hopping over the Alps in one night without a lay-over in the Innsbruck area...

Insight anyone?

Happy birding
Dale

Snowfinch photo from last weekend

Snowfinch, originally uploaded by mcapper.

I was just looking through Mathew Capper's photostream and found this snowfinch photo from last weekend.

He really captured the bird. There is a peace in the belly of the focal bird, and active eye-movement between the two snowfinches, making for an interesting composition.

As Mathew so rightly pointed out, the snowfinch in the foreground has the dark bill, typical of breeding-plumage snowfinches, while the snowfinch at the back still has a fair amount of yellow in its bill. Just a few weeks ago there were hundreds of snowfinches about in Kühtai (Tirol), and a good proportion of them still had their yellow winter bills. This last weekend, we only saw about 30 snowfinches, almost all of which had black bills.

It is fascinating how these birds manage to get going with spring festivities when it is still snowing all the way down in to the deepest valleys - incredible.

Aren't Birds Brilliant! - Birding with BirdLife

Last week, BirdLife employees from all over Europe had a meeting in Absam to workshop, learn and discuss the Aren't Birds Brilliant programme. For those of you who don't know what this BirdLife programme is all about, it is essentially about encouraging regular people to come out to particular natural history spectacles and experience some of the wonder and beauty that fascinates us as birders - it is about sharing our passion and love for all sorts of experiences Mother Nature has blessed us with.

Marco Brodde (DOF Denmark) photographing Alpine Chough

Anyhow, it is with this wonderful bunch of people that I got to spend Saturday with, showing them just how brilliant birding in the Alps of Tirol can be.

Our first stop was Kühtai. 2020m above sea level and 1.5m of snow. A real Alpine winter wonderland. But boy was it cold - about 10 degrees below freezing, with a biting breeze. But the escapade in to the mountains paid off quickly with a glimpse of a couple of Alpine Chough disappearing over the rooftops. Fairly quickly, we heard an Alpine Accentor singing from a balcony, affording us wonderful views. As we were watching the Alpine Accentor, a flock of Alpine Chough treated us by alighting on the rooftop.

Ken Smith (RSPB, UK) on the lookout...

Digiscoping Alpine Choughs in Kühtai

Digiscoping the singing Alpine Accentor in Kühtai

Heading off further in to town, we caught fleeting glimpses of the White-winged Snowfinches heading back to the area where they are fed with sunflower seeds. Getting back there, we managed to get incredibly views of a small flock of snowfinches feeding on the ground. It was great to get such a lovely look at such an beautiful and enigmatic Alpine bird species. The fact that 90+% of the birds had dark, black bills, and that there were only about 30 snowfinches about desipite the early hour and the light snow, suggests that they really have moved off to their high mountain territory areas.

Orbán Zoltán (MME Hungary) and Mathew Capper (RSPB, UK) with the snowfinches

Heading back down the Sellraintal, I took the BirdLife group up to Lüsens for fantastic views of the Lüsenerfern Glacier. Besides the great views, we were hoping to pick up some of the other high-alpine species. Shockingly, the normally easily found Spotted Nutcracker did not want to be found (despite hearing them call a number of times). No sign of Ptarmigan, but wonderful views of a young Golden Eagle, and a dramatic fly-by by a huge white Northern Goshawk.

On the stake-out for Spotted Nuthatch.

Looking up at the Lüsener Fern Glacier.

We then headed down to Juifenau, where we finally got good views of Nutcracker, and picked up Willow Tit, Coal Tit, Great Tit, Greenfinch, Nutcracker, Blackbird, and Yellow Hammer, all feeding in a garden on the outskirts of the little village.

Yellow Hammer in Juifenau.

On our way to Ehnbachklamm (the Wallcreeper stake-out), I saw some Chamois on the hillside near Martinswand and so wanted to stop for a couple of minutes so that the others can also see one of the Alps loveliest wild animals.
Fernando had a stern look on his face as he scanned the cliff behind the Chamois.
"The Eagle Owl is over there", he says.
No tonal inflection in voice.
Fixed action pattern reaction from birder. You can guess what it was.
"What?!"
A moment of silence as time bent.
And then, there it was. Sitting in a hole.
That made my day (and that of many others!)

Eagle Owl at 180x magnification

At the Eagle Owl stake-out

Leaving most of the group at Ehnbachklamm, Martin Capper (RSPB, UK) and I quickly dashed in to Innsbruck to get Joanna Kalinowska (OTOP, Poland) to the train station. There, we picked up a good 30 or so Crag Martins feeding over the Inn.

Joining the rest of the group in Ehnbachklamm, who had been searching for Wallcreeper, we learnt that the Wallcreepers were still playing hard to get.

We then headed out on a longer walk, hoping to pick up the shy Three-toed Woodpecker, Black Woodpecker and anything else we could come across. Heading all the way back to Brunntal Alm, we had plenty of time to soak in the peacefulness and beauty of the landscape. Three inches of fresh fluffy snow really gave the woodlands a lovely charm.

In the Brunntal area, Zirl

We ended the afternoon with a breath-taking view over Zirl, and the mountains to the south.

Life in the mountains is hard!

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

Well, the Alpine Accentors think its spring

I have not seen a single Alpine Accentor (Alpenbraunelle) in the many long months since the snows set in up in the mountains. I have looked for them.

And I have three theories:

1. They have been super super shy,
2. Alpine Accentors hibernate under the snow like Marmots, or
3. Alpine Accentors move to slightly lower altitudes in winter (maybe Südtirol /Alto Adige in Italy).

After a good while with rather rough, stormy, snowy weather, we had a nice warming over the last few days. And as soon as the sun started to come out, the birds flew out in full song. Everywhere you went, there were tits singing, blackbirds chirping and common buzzards screeching.

Heading back up the Sellraintal to Kühtai, I expected to find the regular White-winged Snowfinches.
None.
Not a sausage.
It seems they are only about when the weather is rotten. and the warmer weather and spring feaver got them dashing off in to the mountains to set up their territories (many already have their breeding-colours black bill).

not finding any snowfinches and only a couple of Alpine Choughs early in the morning, I decided to go skiing for a while. The pistes were magical and soft. Off-piste there was a goog 60cm of fluffy soft powder snow. That kept me more than busy for a few hours.

Now that I think of it, I have kept my birder eye in the sky the whole winter, looking for a soaring Golden Eagle and not seen a single one! I wonder what has happened to them? Everything I have read says that Golden Eagles reamin in their territories through winter, but live in expanded home ranges. That means that - given the huge amount of time I spend watching nature and being in the mountains of Tirol - I should have seen at least one poor, cold, half-frozen Golden Eagle in that time. mmm

After playing in the powder snow for a good while, I decided to go for a little walk around the village of Kühtai to see what I could find. The village is actually pretty good year-round for finding high Alpine birds (and quite possibly my favorite alpine birding spot in Tirol).
Nothing.
As I was getting ready to leave, my cell phone rings.
I check my phone, but it is doing nothing.
Still, I hear the ring tone.
(I had, at one stage, an Alpine Accentor song as my ringtone)
So I scan the roof tops and quickly find the culprit.
A lovely singing Alpine Accentor on the roof above me.

If you look really hard, you can see the Alpine Accentor at the apex of the roof.

I had my binoculars with me, and my camera, and tried my hardest to get a couple of digibinning photos of the Alpine Accentor, but it was just too far away to get anything decent. But at least you can see that it is an Alpine Accentor!


This is quite possibly a bird from the group that uses the little clump of trees just west of Kühtai (under the Dreiseenbahn Sesselbahn/chair lift).

Alpine Accentor feeding on some scraps on the ground

So, it seems that the Alpine Accentors are back and singing, and the White-winged Snowfinches are convinced it is almost breeding time - it must be spring!

For other blog entries (and lots more information) on Alpine Accentors, click here.

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

Digibinning snowfinches and the first signs of spring in Tirol

We have had tons of fresh, soft, fluffy snow of late, and I took the opportunity to head out to Kühtai to check up on the white-winged snowfinches (Schneefinken) that congregate there in the winter. It truly is a remarkable spot for snowfinches in winter and this trip was no exception. The weather was ghastly in the Sellraintal (just southwest of Innsbruck, Tirol) but when I got to Kühtai at 8am or so, there were already between 200 and 250 snowfinches hanging out around the base station of the HochAlterBahn chair lift (where they are fed with sunflower seeds).

Initially, I struggled to get close to them and they were very shy. This is the same experience I have had in the past where the snowfinches are incredibly shy and weary initially in the morning, but as more and more people arrive at the lift station, they tend to get more accepting of their presence and will let people approach them within a few meters before flying off. Having said that, they usually reach their limit by about 9:30 10:00 am, at which stage they all but dissappear. I am not sure if it is jus that the majority of the birds have fed enough by that stage, that they move off and are no longer tied to the feeder. Or it might be that the sheer number of skiers bashing about their feeding ground reaches a point beyond which they are no longer prepared to put up with. I suspect that both factors play a role in their feeding behaviour.



Another thing that I have found interesting in their winter feeding behaviour is that they are almost always in flocks (at least where I have seen them). The flock of 250ish birds in Kühtai tends to stick loosely together, sometimes splitting in to smaller flocks, but these smaller flocks also tend to incorporate at least 20 birds.

Having said that, recently I have noticed more and more singles heading off from the flock in to the mountains, and last week I saw a lone white-winged snowfinch up on a peak (Nösslachjoch) near Steinach am Brenner. Being such hardy high altitude birds with only very short (if any) altitudinal migration, and an astonishingly early breeding season given the snowy nature of their preferred habitat, it is not surprising that they may already be thinking about setting up territories and getting ready for the breeding season.


Another piece of evidence for breeding preparation is that about 20-30% of the snowfinches in the Kühtai flock already had darker or black bills - the only minor change that they make in their change to breeding plumage.

It seems like spring is on its way here in the Alps of Austria, even if the meters of snow we are getting is doing its best to deny the fact...

Digibinning techinque

Taking digital photos through binoculars can be rather difficult, particularly if the light is poor. The two hardest things about digibinning the snowfinches was that the light was low (because of the heavy snow and fog), and blown out (lots of matt, bright white and dark areas too dark for detail). These are tough lighting conditions even for the best dSLR cameras, let alone a small point-and-shoot like the Canon A590IS I use for digibinning and digiscoping. With a little bit of patience, I found that I could get some okay shots through my binoculars (well, they are swarovski EL's after all ;-)

The trick to taking photos through binoculars is to:

1. get good light
2. get close enough to not have to use the camera's zoom (a real image-killer as the lenses on the small point and shoot digital cameras are rather poor, in general)
3. get good light
4. hold the binoculars vertical in your left hand, having access to the focus knob with your left hand's fingers, and freeing up your right hand to handle the camera
5. use a good pair of binoculars - high quality lenses are likely to give you much more light (faster shutter speeds = sharper images) and a better quality of image.
6. if you are lucky, your camera's lens will fit snuggly in to the eye-cup of your binoculars. If this is not the case, you will either need to use something like the swarovski snapshot adaptor, or try your luck with holding the camera lens at the right angle and in the right position (no easy feat, but I have done it for some decent video and photos of leopards and black rhino as well as an African Fish Eagle - beautiful!)
7. With the binoculars rested on your lower hand, lower fingers focussing, and right hand free to operate the camera, you are all set to find subjects.
8. Backlight is a real photo-killer for digibinning, so you will want to position yourself with the light shining on the subject.

If you look at the three snowfinch images above, you will immediately notice a few things:

1. Vignetting can be an issue. This can be avoided by zooming the camer a little bit, but this has two major side effects: 1. you put more strain on the camera lens which tends to produce softer/blurred images, and 2. you reduce the maximum possible shutter speed
2. Because the lighting was harsh, the image resutls tend to have blown out whites, and feature-less darks. this can be corrected to some extent by post-processing (see the first snowfinch image with the one snowfinch flying towards the feeder). In this image I reduced the intensity of the highlights and brightened the darks. The result is that one can now see more details, but - unfortunately - the image looks photoshopped and artificial.
3. Even under tough conditions, digibinning can help you get a few photos to take home with you! (even if they are not always national geographic-ready)
   

For more info on digibinning, see some other posts here.

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

Bohemian Waxwings and Snowfinches in Tirol

I had just been wondering when things here would start looking up again. Sure, some of the birds are starting to sing and that is lovely. but not much is really happening here in the mountains on the bird front.

Then, this morning, I saw a single White-winged Snowfinch [see BirdPost map] in what only can be described as blizzard-like conditions, at the top of a mountain (Nößlachjoch above Steinach am Brenner). I found this rather strange as they tend to collect in larger flocks in wintertime. Maybe this guy was just wandering about by himself, or the rest of the flock was out of sight (this would not surprise me). Or, maybe these guys have started thinking about returning to their high alpine haunts to start setting up territories as they tend to be early breeders. If you are interested in White-winged Snowfinches, you might want to check out some of my other snowfinch posts.

Heading off of the Autobahn this afternoon, I saw a flock of birds fly over the traffic circle I was approaching.
Their shape and flight was not familiar.
I craned my head out of the window.
narrowly avoided a blue car.
starlings? thrushes?
red car hoots.
was that a crest?
no, can't be.
hard jolt as car bounces off sidewalk
pretty sure that was a crest.
hand brakes were invented for a reason.

I found a spot to park. Cursed for having taken my swaros out of the boot this morning.
Definately 14 lovely Bohemian Waxwings in the tree above me.
Cursed again for not having my camera.

If you use your imagination, you can see the Bohemian Waxwings there in the top of the tree. Don't blame me for the chromatic aberration. My cell phone is only just good enough to make phone calls and asking it to take bird ID photos is always going to be a challenge (but see my digiphoned Black Tern here, which I was rather proud of).

For those of you interested in the details, there were 14 waxwings in all, and had flown from the Völser Innau, landing in the trees at the large traffic circle outside Cyta Shopping Center, Völs (about 5km West of Innsbruck). The sighting map is here.

Winter birding in the Alps - Snowfinches

Trying to find birds in the thick of winter here in the Alps is not exactly easy. Tirol is covered in snow, and we don't have the influx of nordic/arctic birds that eastern Austria get. Well, that is not completely true, we do get a couple of winter visitors; mainly various ducks on the River Inn, but they are scarce and shy (but I did see a Goosander - Gänsesäger - a couple of weeks ago!).

We have had snow right down in to the Inntal for the past 5 weeks now, and the only birds I have in my garden are House Sparrows and Blackbirds (with the occassional Carrion Crow flying past).

So, last weekend I packed myself up early in the morning and headed up to one of my favorite birding areas - the Sellraintal.
It was quiet ...
too quiet...
(cue dramatic music)

reaching Kühtai, at the head of the Sellraintal, I parked alongside the Hochalterbahn chairlift station (where they have a sunflower seed bird feeder).
nothing.
I am starting to get used to this.

I set up my digiscoping setup anyway, as I am pretty sure something will show up eventually.
Hand freeze.
Toes wont move anymore.
But I am pretty sure something will show up.
(pleading voice)

Suddenly, 200+ snowfinches cirlcing overhead!
What an incredible sight.
Snowfinches everywhere.


All through Summer, I had scoured the high Alps looking for White-winged Snowfinches (Schneefinken, Montifringilla nivalis), but I only ever got fleeting glimpses of small groups as they darted about with their quick, direct flight. Trying to get photos of them - I think - would have been an exhausting and fruitless endeavour.
In Winter - it seems - they congregate in much larger flocks, particularly in areas where there is a dependable food supply. Kühtai itself is already at 2020m, and almost above the treeline, and I have rarely (if ever) seen snowfinches below this altitude, so it seems like (at least here) they tend to remain in the high mountains throughout the Winter, picking up whatever food bits they can. Besides feeding on the sunflower seeds at the bird feeder, I also saw smaller flocks of a couple dozen birds going down in to a little ravine / hollow where they seemed to be feeding on something on the ground.



You would think that with a couple hundred snowfinches about that it would not be that hard to take a decent photo. Well, I actually found it quite challenging. Perched, the snowfinch is a rather drab bird - it looks more like a house sparrow than a bird that I would make huge efforts to see. But, it is in taking off and landing that they flash their luminescent white wing and tail plumage and transform to a captivating bird of contrasts.

And so, I set myself the task of trying to capture them in take-off or landing. Well, easier said than done. It brought me to discover something I had not realised about them before - they are incredibly quick little birds. Their take-off speed is incredible and I have scores of photo series' where there are snowfinches in one frame and nothing in the next. In comparison to their wanna-be look-alikes, house sparrows are practically lazy and/or geriatric flyers.

The snowfinches left me captivated by their flight.
And their colour definately added to the spectacle.
What gorgeous creatures.
How lovely to be alive.

So, it seems, there are some Winter birding opportunities in the Tirolean and Austrian Alps - you just have to work a little harder for them.

[See other White-winged Snowfinch posts here]

Happy (Winter) birding
Dale

Birding in eastern Austria: Neusiedlersee, Lange Lacke and others

Last weekend, on our way back in from Hungary, Martin Riesing took me on a whirlwind tour of Burgenland / eastern Austria's best birding spots. We went in search of hawks and saw tons of Hen Harriers (Circus cyaneus, Kornweihen), an immature White-tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla, Seeadler), an Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliaca, Östlicher Kaiseradler) and a few Kestrels (Turmfalken) but no sign of the Saker Falcons (Falco cherrug, Sakerfalke).

A quick detour to find Great Bustards (Otis tarda, Großtrappe) produced a healthy flock of individuals flying together - I had never seen anything like it: 18kg birds flying. Sure, I had seen a good number of Kori Bustards (Ardeotis kori) in southern Africa, but they very rarely take to the skies and I had only ever seen them in pairs - never in a whole flock of scores of them!



The climax of the day was spending a few hours bracing against the bitterly cold wind along the shore of Lange Lacke, where we saw thousands of Greylag and White-fronted Geese (Anser anser and Anser albifrons), a good few Bean Geese (Anser fabilis, Saatgans), a couple of Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis, Weißwangengans), and - the highlight for me - a single Red-breasted Goose (Branta ruficollis, Rothalsgans) moving about with the White-fronted Geese. We tried our best, but could not find a single Lesser White-fronted Goose (Anser erythropus, Zwerggans).

Birding in eastern Austria is obviously quite different from birding here in the Alpine region of western Austria - and there are certainly lots more species to be seen - but I must admit that by the end of the weekend I was itching to get back to the mountains to see some of our alpine birds again - Alpine Accentors, Snow Finches, Golden Eagles...

Happy birding
Dale