Joern Lehmhus
Well-known member
Last Sunday, 1.2.2004 my girlfriend and me revisited the lower Rhine area between Nijmegen, Emmerich and Kleve. We had been there a few weeks before, mainly staying at the Dutch side of the border.
This time we stayed at the German side and here are our sightings:
We started at Bonn shortly before Lunchtime, the first birds were just outside the door: A Hawfinch in the garden, a Common Bussard on a chimney nearby being harassed by magpies and Black Crows.
Driving north on the highway we had besides some domestic pigeons, Wood Pigeons, Kestrels, Rook, Jackdaw, Grey Heron; a partly albinotic Black Crow (spotted like a Holstein Friesean Cow, or maybe like some black and white domestic pigeons) and a very puzzling thing :a Black Kite in the north of Cologne; in winter! Very unusual.
When we arrived at the target area, among the first birds we spotted there was a Great White Egret. Again this bird was on a meadow hunting voles, like the one we had seen at our previous visit. Among the next birds we saw there was a mixed group of Swans:
1Black, 5 Mute (2pairs, 1last year), 4 Bewicks (1Pair with 2 last year). First all these stayed together, but the situation was quite tense between the Mutes and suddenly one pair chased the other pair and the young bird some 100m away; but they did not react towards the other swan species, which stayed.
Among the other birds we saw there were:
About 400 Wigeon
About 70 Tundra Bean Geese
About 8000 Greater White Fronted Geese
4 Barnacle Geese
about 90 Mallards
7 Goosanders
2 Egyptian Geese
About 230 Greylag Geese
About 40 Yellowhammer
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Longtailed Tit
White Wagtail
Around 30 Collared Dove-was that the right name? ( I mean Streptopelia decaocto)
House Sparrow
We had hoped for something more specialbetween the Whitefronts, a Branta ruficollis for example; but we were not lucky with that-perhaps next time...
Joern
This time we stayed at the German side and here are our sightings:
We started at Bonn shortly before Lunchtime, the first birds were just outside the door: A Hawfinch in the garden, a Common Bussard on a chimney nearby being harassed by magpies and Black Crows.
Driving north on the highway we had besides some domestic pigeons, Wood Pigeons, Kestrels, Rook, Jackdaw, Grey Heron; a partly albinotic Black Crow (spotted like a Holstein Friesean Cow, or maybe like some black and white domestic pigeons) and a very puzzling thing :a Black Kite in the north of Cologne; in winter! Very unusual.
When we arrived at the target area, among the first birds we spotted there was a Great White Egret. Again this bird was on a meadow hunting voles, like the one we had seen at our previous visit. Among the next birds we saw there was a mixed group of Swans:
1Black, 5 Mute (2pairs, 1last year), 4 Bewicks (1Pair with 2 last year). First all these stayed together, but the situation was quite tense between the Mutes and suddenly one pair chased the other pair and the young bird some 100m away; but they did not react towards the other swan species, which stayed.
Among the other birds we saw there were:
About 400 Wigeon
About 70 Tundra Bean Geese
About 8000 Greater White Fronted Geese
4 Barnacle Geese
about 90 Mallards
7 Goosanders
2 Egyptian Geese
About 230 Greylag Geese
About 40 Yellowhammer
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Longtailed Tit
White Wagtail
Around 30 Collared Dove-was that the right name? ( I mean Streptopelia decaocto)
House Sparrow
We had hoped for something more specialbetween the Whitefronts, a Branta ruficollis for example; but we were not lucky with that-perhaps next time...
Joern
