Rhine River Cruise Birding - Itinerary Check / Advice (1 Viewer)

[meadowlarkm]

Hi all,

I am going on a Rhine river cruise between Basel and Amsterdam with my family and am in search of some itinerary checking and suggestions. The focus of the trip isn’t birding (rest of my family aren't birders), but I’d like to do a bit of birding where I can.

For context, I'm an American birder that has only done birding in Europe twice. I did a Danube river cruise a few years ago, and the general impression I’m getting is that most of the birds I can expect in the parks along the Rhine are similar to the birds found in urban parks along the Danube (e.g. Great Tit, Common Wood-Pigeon, Eurasian Blackbird, etc.). The only exception to this is in some of vineyard areas, there appears to be potential for things like Cirl Bunting, Rock Bunting, Yellowhammer, etc.

Here’s what I have mapped out so far:

Basel - Petite Camargue Alsacienne seems like the best birding habitat, and it’s only a 30 min bus from the tram station closest to where the cruise docks (St. Johanns-Tor tram station)

Breisach – the more SE portion of the island in the Rhine River near the Equestrain Center seems like it could be productive. The other option would be to head towards Ihringen to look for things like Cirl Bunting and Eurasian Hoopoe

Strasbourg – may try to get on deck early today as we heard north towards the city. There are some interesting looking wetland areas on/next to the river just before you get to Strasbourg. No major birding spots to hit, but there are some city parks that look interesting – e.g Jardin des Deux Rives (near the dock), Parc du Heyitz, Parc del’Orangerie.

Ludwigshafen - Waldpark - seems like you can find some woodpeckers here, but it’s quite a ways away from the dock with public transit. Thinking I’m probably better off birding the area along the Rhine and then down to Parkinsel-Stadtpark Ludwigshafen. There are also included ship excursions that go to Speyer or Heidelberg but in terms of birding I’m not sure there’s much that is special in either of those places.

Rudesheim – thinking of taking the cable car up and then walking down. Vineyards seem to be a good spot to look for things like Cirl Bunting, Rock Bunting, Eurasian Wryneck, etc.

Lahnstein – not much, could walk to the Koppelstein area (it’s a nature preserve) and get things like woodpeckers and the more common birds

Cologne/Dusseldorf - not seeing a whole lot of great birding areas close by. Hofgarten is quite close to where the ship docks in Dusseldorf. There are regional trains that are only ~30 to places like Mulheim, where someone else on BirdForum recommended (link) but I'm not sure if I'm better off just walking through Hofgarten if my time is limited

Amsterdam – Vondelpark seems to be the most highly recommended place within Amsterdam. Oostvaardersplassen is going to be too difficult to get to without a car, and I do not think I’ll have time to make it there. Amsterdamse Bos is another good option. Alternatively, I could try to take the train from Central to Saandport Noord station and walk into the dunes

Any thoughts / suggestions appreciated. I may not go birding in all of these towns and cities, but I at least wanted to research my potential options in each if I have free time.

 

[Captain_of_Crunch]

For Ruedesheim I would add that the best place to look for Rock Bunting is towards the west end of the vineyards. I saw several near this spot here but they are likely to be around the wider area:

Aussichtspunkt Binger Loch & Nahedurchbruch · B42, 65385 Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany

âââââ · Observation deck

www.google.co.uk

I am not entirely sure Cirl Bunting occurs here and Wryneck may be quite scarce, but worth keeping an eye out for Hoopoe and Melodious Warbler as well. The latter is very quickly expanding its range northward in Germany so any Hippolais warbler is worth checking carefully.

-Heidelberg has a resident introduced population of Pink-footed Goose if that is of interest.

- Another good spot for Rock Bunting are the vineyards at the base of the Drachenfels in Rhoendorf:

Rhöndorf · 53604 Bad Honnef, Germany

53604 Bad Honnef, Germany

www.google.co.uk

-The Wahner Heide just south of Cologne/Bonn airport is a very good birding spot. It is not a site I have visited so I can't really recommend any particular spots.

-Depending on how much time you have, you could also visit the Rieselfelder Muenster from Cologne which is a very good wetland site. It takes just over 2hrs from central Cologne to get there.

For travel, I would suggest using bahn.de to check connections and ornitho.de for recent bird sightings rather than eBird. In the Netherlands it is best to check waarneming.nl for sightings: Waarneming.nl

 

[meadowlarkm]

This is great. Thank you!

It looks like Rieselfelder Muenster might actually be accessible by public transit as well, although it is still distant. The boat docks near the Hofgarten in Düsseldorf for the entire day, so I might have time to go there

 

[Xenospiza]

The Ihringen area is good for Cirl Bunting, Hoopoe and (the very common) Bee-eater. I saw these on a long walk west of Bötzingen.

The vineyards west of Rüdesheim are actually the place where birders I know go for Cirl Bunting, so it must be good. I expect Melodious Warbler to be there: I bumped into a pair near Boppard (a bit further north) last year. Rock Bunting should be there as well, which then frees you from visiting Drachenfels (although that is actually a place I really like, as it is the closest "mountain" from where I live).

If you can get to Sandpoort, enjoying the nice dunes is preferable over the Vondelpark!

 

[KidChino]

This is great. Thank you!

It looks like Rieselfelder Muenster might actually be accessible by public transit as well, although it is still distant. The boat docks near the Hofgarten in Düsseldorf for the entire day, so I might have time to go there

Getting to the city of Münster from Düsseldorf will be rather fast and easy, but the Rieselfelder are somewhat north of the city and will require an additional bus ride that can take quite a while.

The Hofgarten in Düsseldorf is usually full of people and not much fun to bird, though it has a sizable population of Rose-ringed parakeet and the occasional Alexandrine parakeet, too.

Someone already recommended the Wahner Heide, which should be way easier to reach than the Rieselfelder, given that the Cologne airport is close by. Likely species here are Red-backed shrike, Hawfinch, Eurasian bullfinch, European stonechat, Red kite... with good chances at stuff like Black and Middle-spotted woodpeckers or Eurasian hobby.

 

[jurek]

Check herring type gulls - in Switzerland, there are only Yellow-legged Gulls, and in Amsterdam, most are European Herring. Near Strasbourg and further there are also Caspian, but you saw these on Danube.

The best place for birding likely will be Amsterdam. Meadows and fields outside Amsterdam are rich in waterfowl, waders, Bluethroats etc. There are also surprisingly many birds right in the city. One place is Ijdoorn IJdoorn--Plasdras, Noord-Holland, Netherlands - eBird Hotspot but the best strategy is to look at observation.org what is seen the day you are in Amsterdam. I suppose places like Ijmuiden IJmuiden Zuidpier, Noord-Holland, Netherlands - eBird Hotspot or De Putten De Putten, Noord-Holland, Netherlands - eBird Hotspot may be too far for you.

 

[Captain_of_Crunch]

One site I completely forgot about is the Wagbachniederung wetland area between Mannheim and Karlsruhe. This has a nice selection of species including good populations of Bluethroat and Purple Heron, and regularly gets some interesting rarities. From Ludwigshafen, it is about 50 minutes by local train to the station of Waghäusel, with a walk of about 20-30 minutes to the site. The main areas to concentrate on are the 'Becken 3' and 'Becken 5'. Grey-headed Woodpecker occurs around here as well so any 'green' woodpecker is worth a check.

This site covers many of the species present at the Rieselfelder Muenster so a better approach may be to go to the Wahner Heide in Duesseldorf?

Alternatively, Cirl Bunting and Melodiuos Warbler occur in the vineyards west of Deidesheim to the west of Ludwigshafen (45 minutes by train).