Ok, not much luck lately with my birding adventures. For today, I again had registered with Munich Volkshochschule for a guided birding tour. This time through the English Garden right in Munich, led again by Manfred Siering from the Ornithologische Gesellschaft Bayern. Now, this is my “backyard”, and I was really interested to see whether he could add more information over what I have found myself there over the course of the last two years.
The weather had a good and a bad side: It was much much warmer than the past days, but it was still dripping rain and also some strong winds were blowing. So I left my camera at home and just took the binoculars, assuming I wouldn’t miss much of a photo opportunity.
We did not see the brown owl (wasn’t home, probably sipping some hot chocolate in a place where it was warm and dry), and couldn’t find any dippers at the little creek near the Lodenfrey Werke. The strong rain in the Alps over night had also caused the rivers and smaller creeks to have high water for the first time in some weeks, and we could see much wood floating by. So the dippers probably had decided to meet with brown owl for a change and a chocolate.
In line with that, none of the waxwings troops that currently stalk Germany were found. They are here because the snow grouses in their home, the artic regions, were forced to eat the berries in the trees instead those down on the ground, because those had already been eaten by too many mice this year. So the waxwings figured there would be none of their berries for themselves, and fled the scene. At least this is what I remember of the story…
In summary, it was as expected not too exciting and not much new – The highlight was the mating display of several male goldeneyes on the Isar river (not far from my home), in the rain. Well, those water birds did not seem to notice that, but instead were very busy with themselves 
But thanks again to Manfred Siering, who always (no matter how boring the situation could be in that moment) has interesting biological background information ready and is able to make any excursion worth your time. Even without any birds at sight, I am pretty sure.
ID List:
- Carrion Crow / Rabenkrähe
- Common Blackbird / Amsel
- Mute Swan / Höckerschwan
- Greylag Goose / Graugans
- Mallard / Stockente
- Common Pochard / Tafelente
- Tufted Duck / Reiherente
- Eurasian Coot / Blässralle
- Great Tit / Kohlmeise
- Eurasian Blue Tit / Blaumeise
- Common Chaffinch / Buchfink
- Little Grebe / Zwergtaucher
- Wren / Zaunkönig
- Common Goldeneye / Schellente
We did hear, but could not get visual confirmation for
- Long-tailed Tit / Schwanzmeise
No related posts.
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