The “Stunde der Wintervögel“, you could say “one hour for the winter’s birds”, aims every year to determine the health of the bird population in our country. The mechanism is simple enough – volunteers spend one hour on the 6th of January (conveniently being Epiphany, a public holiday in Bavaria) or the following weekend at one site counting the birds of each species seen during that period.
The result is an overview of the Bavarian bird population, at least of the most commonly seen song birds, giving the nature protecting NGOs like the Landesbund für Vogelschutz in Bayern (LBV) or the Naturschutzbund Deutschland (NABU) the data they need to act protecting the birds.
And for a birder, there is of course no better excuse to spend that hour birding than for a larger cause 
I had participated – and reported here – already in 2009 and 2010, and this time I again chose a different place for my birding – a place at the eastern shore of the famous Starnberger See some 40 km south-west of Munich. So in addition to the song birds in the trees near a winter RV park there, I also hoped to add some water fowl.
And here is the result:
- Three Great Tits. At least. Probably ten, but you’re tasked to count only those that you can clearly see concurrently, because the danger of counting the same individuum more than once is just too high. And these as usual gave me a hard time telling them apart.
- One Blue Tit. I kept having one in my binoculars over and over again, and again I am sure there were more.
- One Long-tailed Tit. Why it was only one I do not know, as they usually come in the dozen, but I was enchanted as I absolutely adore these cuties! Of course, I failed to take a decent photograph (again) – they just never sit still.
- A stranger I mistook for an Eurasian Blackcap at first sight – though of course all the Blackcaps have by now found a nice warm place in the southern sun. But I took some photos of my riddle bird (the one shown above is probably the best of these), and of course it is a Marsh Tit (its song made it clear, from the looks it could have been a Willow Tit as well).
- Nuthatch. One. I always love seeing these colorful birds.
- Treecreeper, short-toed I guess from the habitat. One.
- Chaffinch. One, on the ground between the RVs picking up food that fell down from a bird house there.
- Carrion Crow. One. It did not seem to enjoy as the other birds did today’s beautiful plus 13° C seemingly announcing spring, but in reality being only Foehn wind turning winter briefly into something, well, muddy, given the amount of snow melting on the meadows.
- Two Mute Swans, being fed by the strollers at the lake side.
- Six Mallard Ducks, trying to get some of the food as well.
- One Blackbird.
- One Cormorant, flying high above.
- A flock of sixteen or so Black-headed Gulls.
- A riddle Gull that swam lonely far out on the lake, as my photos ended up being not sharp enough I could not distinguish between Caspian Gull and Herring Gull. The excellent birding field guide for southern Germany, “Vögel Beobachten in Süddeutschland” by Moning and Wagner mentions both of these being very likely at that spot, so I don’t dare to guess – this bird will go by unreported to the LBV.
Later added (after the official 60 minute counting time was over):
- A large flock of Canada Goose. In one sub-flock I counted 13 Canada Goose, and they had a:
- Single little Barnacle Goose hiding between them, also flying with them as the Canada Goose took off as one.
All in a very typical result of the most common birds around here, and no big suprises today. But a Long-Tailed Tit
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