Advice for birding outside of Zurich (1 Viewer)

Apologies for the general Q, but I have just discovered I will need to be in Zurich for meetings on the 29th of May (Friday) and was wondering if I could solicit some advice from a local?

I will have a free day (Saturday) with a flight back to Aussie at 10 PM.

I was thinking I could either stay in the city Friday night and try and find a birding area accessible by public transport for the day...or travel to a birding area Friday afternoon, spend the night there and travel back Sat for my flight. This may be all to hard for such a tight window, but thought I would try?

I will start to do my research or potential targets and locations, now but thought I would access the resources of the Form as well. ANY help is welcome!

Roger

This is at least one place to start: http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Switzerland

Niels

Hi Roger,

a full day is perfect for a day out in Switzerland, many good sites in reach of a 1-2 hours drive/train ride from Zurich.

If you have not much experience with European birds and want the widest diversity possible, it's probably best to head for some of the wetlands. Fanel (see opus linked above) or the Rheindelta (Lake of Constance, Austrian side) are good and about 1 1/2 hour away, on the far end of the Lake of Zurich you can also find nice spots closer to town.

If you rather look for the mountain specialities, you should have also good options. Snowmelt is rather advanced this spring, so you can already go relatively high up...

Let us know what you're after, and we can give you some more detailed advice!

Hi Roger,

As Florian said, there are a lot of options. If you want to see mountain birds you could travel to Niederhorn on Friday afternoon, spend the night up there and see some mountain birds the next day and still reach your flight in the evening in Zurich. I'm actually planning to go there and if you like we could go birding together.
Fanel and Rhinedelta are very good options as well, however you will either need a car or rent a bicycle in these places. Klingnauer Stausee is another easy place, Braunwald comes to my mind (mountain birds as well), too.

Just give me a pm if you're interested.

André