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We are back from our ten-day family vacation to Berlin and Prague and it was awesome. But this is a bird blog so I will stick to the birds here and simply share five things that I learned while birding in Germany or, to be more exact, while birding in Berlin. Mandarin Ducks are countable in Germany. Nothing, that’s what!
But I have been sick with different kinds and forms of cold since the beginning of December with no interruption, and so has my entire family. That is very cold for the south of Germany. It appears as if some bird species are more susceptible to an infection than others, but many species are affected. I honestly did.
I feel that like most bird families (with the obvious exception of pheasants), buntings are somewhat underrated. At my regular birding spot at Nanhui, Shanghai, five or six species of buntings can be seen fairly regularly, and about the same number very occasionally. In other words, they are my kind of birds. Pallas Bunting.
Or would be, had I encountered more of them – so far, I have seen only a very small share of the approximately 233 woodpecker species, and got decent photos of an even smaller number – not much more than 10% of all of them. So, writing a post about them is easy.
As this African Green Pigeon shows, the color should offer good camouflage for species living on trees. In case you do not know that brimstone is sulfur, the Brimstone Canary brings the point home by having the Latin species name sulphurata. Different bird families, I know. Lucia for the birds. Celebration everywhere.
It helps that there is a little bird hide almost on top of the hill, guarded by a Chinese lady and attracting a substantial number of species of birds and birders. The hide also attracts three species of minla – Blue-tailed Minla , Chestnut-tailed Minla and Red-tailed Minla.
The Edwards’s Pheasant is a rather smart blue-black member of the pheasant family and it may be on the edge of extinction. It has recently been reclassified as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List; this category is reserved for only the most threatened species in the world.
To us on the traditional side of the Atlantic, they’ll always belong to the family Iznogoudae , the birds who want to become warblers instead of the warblers. The genus Passer has several well-recognized and recognizable species in Europe, and still holds several enigmas. And do they ever try so hard.
Germany, like most of Europe and very much unlike North America, is home to only one species of squirrel. Mammals Germany red squirrels squirrels' And aren’t you glad it is. We don’t begrudge you the diversity though, because we have reed warblers and you don’t.
The world is still turning, the blog didn’t crash, no anonymous threats against my family on social media … I guess my small series on gulls may continue with part 2 of 3, which will focus on the Herring Gull ‘s second side-kick: Caspian Gull Larus cachinnans. Why does “steppe” win over “Caspian”?
Europe… with such low herp diversity the locals split any sub-population of a species that occurs on either the Iberian Peninsula or Italy as a new species just to make them feel better out themselves, naturally is the continent that rose to the top of my trip list. Either that or having family friends in Germany.
This seems like a strange – but welcome – turn of events after having failed to see this species several times in the region. I experienced a perfect illustration of this many years ago when I was traveling in New Zealand with my family. My family still regularly reminds me of that sighting when I get excited about birds.
Starting in the 16th century, the species was released widely on ponds and parks and rivers throughout Europe where it flourished remarkably and continues to do so to this very day. A happy family of Mute Swans at Waghäusel in south-western Germany, post-trading era. Evidently, kayaking was not a popular sport in those times.
In fact, this is probably a species that has substantially expanded its original range through the pet shop route and the resulting escapees. In fact, it seems to be one of the species employed by past ornithologists to establish their own monument in the shape of a subspecies. I grew up in a small town in Northern Germany.
Nearly 70 species of parrots have been recorded flying free at some stage or another in Miami, including Hyacinth Macaws. Dozens of other introduced bird species, largely escapees from pet owners, now call Miami home. A Carolina Parakeet mounted in a museum in Germany Fritz Geller-Grimm. Reluctance.
Seeing 525 species was nice, as was the fact that I birded in four countries, nine of the fifty states in the United States, and fifty-one counties. I want to reach 500 birds in the ABA, get my Queens list to 295, see a total of at least 500 species, and get my World Life List to 1,100. But how did I see so many species this year?
It sheltered him, it haunted him, and it set his thoughts adrift, to the warmth of spring and the family he had. The problem is that Blackbirds are incredibly common in suburban and even urban areas of Germany. In suburban Germany, this will essentially mean a silent spring. The darkness was all around him. All were long gone.
White Wagtail Motacilla alba During our family vacation we stayed at our friends’ house in Kreuzberg, the neighborhood just north of Templehof, which means a ten-minute walk would get me to some decent habitat in which to look for birds. It was one of the busiest airports in the 1930s, is home to a building 1.2
We are entering the mixed colony of 11 species ( Grey , Squacco , Purple and Black-crowned Night Herons ; Great , Little and, recently, Cattle Egrets ; Eurasian Spoonbill (below) and Glossy Ibis ; Pygmy and Great Cormorant ). I do have experience with this species from Bodrum, Turkey; it is daring, bold and cocky, and is impossible to forget.
But I do have rules about whether I can have said to have visited a country, ie does the country “count” which I have inherited from my family, particularly my Dad. I have caught a bus across Europe, but I can’t really claim to have “been” to Germany or Belgium.
Bad developments indeed, particularly as the White-backed Vulture was found to be a good avian biomonitor species – if it does badly, most likely the environment as a whole will do badly, too. I could immediately tell them it was an Egyptian Goose – an invasive species in Germany but not at Kruger.
In fact, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology , “The Golden Eagle is the most common official national animal in the world – it’s the emblem of Albania, Germany, Austria, Mexico, and Kazakhstan.” The oldest known Golden Eagle was over 30 years old, and as a species they prefer open and semi-open landscapes.
And while they are easily identified to genus level, species identification - where necessary - is all I have mentioned in the intro to this post above, and then some. “Outside North America&# and “where necessary&# ? have asked themselves for ages: Is the Brown Creeper more than one species ? I’ll explain.
Here goes: Paradise Flycatchers are a genus in the broader (and rather large) family of Monarchidae. There are 17 different species of them, a few of them endangered, particularly some island endemics. Switching to the Amur Paradise Flycatcher , which has the Latin species name of incei. not their own).
This is “the deep cradle of Western ornithology: the birthplace of bird study,” he tells us as he writes about gazing at the 8,000-year old depictions of “flamingos, herons, raptors, avocets and many other species” (p.
Among these white-headed/dark-winged gulls formerly lumped into the genus Larus , there were 18+ recognized species the last time I checked, sharing similarities that make telling them apart for the amateur birdwatcher very difficult. 1998), then the proper name for this species is L. fuscus – should be separated as species.
Slaughter Lake does not sound like it would be a nice place to visit but we three Americans, my small family, were blissfully unaware of what Schlachtensee translates to before our expedition there. It is at the edge of the Grunewald, or Green Forest, which is alleged to have Black Woodpeckers haunting its depths.
The Black-crowned Night Heron is a member of the heron family. This bird used to be quite common in Germany, but now it is rare. This is often the case in birds – for the young birds, it is more important to be invisible than to impress the other birds of the same species. Hopefully, this will not change in the future.
I was given my first real field guide to the birds of Europe by my parents, a guide beyond the species found at backyard feeders and city ponds. My childhood in the 1970s and 1980s was of course shaped by family, friends, playmobil ( very popular in Germany back then), and school but also to a certain extend by the Cold War.
For many grassland species, our vast expanses of tilled and plowed fields, orchards and vineyards, pastures and rangeland offer an abundance of convenient food and shelter – and some bolder birds even wander indoors to find these things in our barns and stables. For most of history, beer has thrived in agrarian settings, too.
Not a cover species The Black Kite is not actually black, but of course, misleading bird names are not exactly rare. No surprise then that the species is listed as Vulnerable. But then, sanity (or maybe respect for you, the reader) prevailed. Fortunately, they are quite common in Shanghai. It is also called Chinese Bulbul.
It’s also the first drink featuring a non-North American species (I’ll admit there’s a bias in my selections that’s largely dictated by geography). This the first drink I’ve reviewed featuring a bird not yet on my life list – and it’s not one I’m counting on adding any time soon.
Next, band names referring to individual birds or bird families. A Eurasian Wren (Visselhoevede, Germany). Common Crane , Schneverdingen, Germany. The Bowerbirds are an American independent-folk band as well as an Australian bird family. The bird family, however, is not. Or look at what I just created below.
are up next, with a wonderful Australian species: It is very hard to choose a Best Bird of the Year any year. The male of this species has a royal blue throat, a white chest and rump, and a long v-shaped tail with intermittent white patches that makes it looks like part of it are floating in space. Clare (and Grant!) How cool is that?
And learn that the Latin species name concinnus is more interesting than the English one – it means “elegant, neat, pleasing” (according to the HBW). These photos were taken in early March – the species looks more attractive in its summer breeding plumage. If this is what you want to read, go there. 0 out of 3.
She lives part-time in Uruguay and is co-director of the Fiction Meets Science program at the University of Bremen, Germany, which seeks to bridge the “two cultures” of science and literature. In the marshes of the estancia , he discovers what he comes to believe is a new species of rail – one of the “accidentals” of the title.
In a funny twist of fate, it seems that 2014 will be much the same as 2012 and 2013 have been, with family trips to somewhere in France and business trips to Indonesia and Kazakhstan. Germany: extensive trips comparable to 2013. See more than 500 species. 550 miles) drive back to Heidelberg/ Germany where we arrive around 18:00.
My trips abroad were limited to short family vacations to the Cote d’Azur during the first days of January and a week-long vacation to northern Tuscany / Italy in May. However, I spent the last few days of the year on the posh island of Sylt in Germany’s far north, my first visit to the North Sea propper since 1989.
I was very glad to be able to spend the week of Christmas and the new year at the Tegernsee, a small lake in southern Bavaria, together with my family and my girlfriend. I did not expect to see this lifer, one of the most popular species in the Alps.
I knew I would be in southern France in the summer, and chances weren’t bad to see the species there. It’s not the first time this species has is recorded in the region but it’s certainly a vagrant as its normal distribution is in southern Europe. The post An Unexpected Twitch appeared first on 10,000 Birds.
Clearly, some scientists should never have been granted the privilege of assigning common names to bird species. And while most of these introduction attempts failed, the species has now become firmly established as a “countable” species in several areas of France and Italy, and even Spain so far as I was able to find out.
Personally, I wish the species the best of luck in this endeavor. (Of However, the fact that there are 30 subspecies seems to indicate that the species has a slightly overblown estimation of its own importance. This species has a relatively large number of calls – 12, to be specific, compared to the average of 7.6
Particularly the latter – Nabang – would in the past easily have merited its own post, but recent developments there that now make the place a bit like the former border between West and East Germany changed that. The species name athertoni is derived from Lt. But not to bees.
Orlando is so rich in roadside and overhead birds that I kept a list of species seen from the car which ran to 30+ on the first morning and included a Bald Eagle nonchalantly sitting on a street lamp by a Target store. I had to do all three as we headed to Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
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