Time flies, a year passed by, and it is winter bird census again! Like last year, this is organized by the Bavarian Bird Conservation Society LBV. And they are getting better at it, this year you can even see the online results of the Bavaria-wide census coming in life at their website!
Briefly, how it works: Volunteers count for one hour all birds they observe in a certain area (garden, park, …) on a specified day (January 6) and report their observations. Only the number of birds that are concurrently visible are counted, to avoid counting the same bird more than once. Which can easily happen, and it can get really hard to figure out the real number of them… Today I officially counted three Great Tits, but I am very sure it were at least 10 
. It’s just you couldn’t see all of them at the same time…
As a location for my count, I for a change did not walk along the Isar river as usual, but chose a small but beautiful old park very close to my home, the Bürgermeistergarten of Munich’s district Bogenhausen. You can find more information and some photos here in the web, or even in the – didn’t know it exists – Munich Wiki.
Here is my result for today:
- Blackbird – two. A couple obviously, looking quite frozen at today’s high temperatures of -4° C.
- Great Spotted Woodpecker – one. High up in the old trees of the park. I heard him wood-pecking only once.
- Blue Tit – one. It especially liked one particular tree in the park.
- Great Tit – three. At least. They won being the most common winter bird in Bavaria in the last two years, so let’s see if they can make a hattrick! At the time of writing, the sparrows are leading though…
- Nut hatch – one. He was added to the list at the very end of the one hour observation period. No idea where he hid (and why
) - Carrion Crow – Two. In flight, I saw some more, but as I am always unsure if they are not Rooks after all, I decided to only count the two on the ground I could have a closer look at.
- Feral Pigeons (City Doves) – Five. Beautiful birds, if you look close enough!
- Brambling – Two. This made my day! The first bramblings (German Bergfink) I have seen, and I was really confused at the first sight (and they were at the very very top of the largest tree). But on the second sighting I could get a looong look through my binoculars, and could study the bird good enough that my subsequent lookup in the bird book at home made it a 100% identification. Ah, birding excitement!
Today, again I didn’t take a camera with me because I wanted to do a good job counting just like last year– did I miss a photo opportunity? I don’t think so, as we like last year had a grey overcast sky and the light was very dim. I might have been able to get an ID shot of the Brambling, but by now I am experienced enough to memorize the bird’s feather colors for identification at home
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