birdie

Cormorant standing on a log in the water drying his wings after a short dive.

I really love this shot simply because of the nice frame that the surrounding trees provided!

I saw this adorable swift baby looking out of its nest today. Never seen one that wasn't flying so this was a great sighting! :-)

There is (fittingly enough) an old barn not too far away from where I live with lots of Barn Swallows nesting inside of it. Always lovely going there and seeing them fly about :-)

I finally saw a Common Firecrest from up close and even managed to take a photo! I was so excited to finally see one, such cute little birds! One of the smallest in Europe even. Their German name (Sommergoldhähnchen) is also great, it translates to “Summer Gold Chicken".

I got tired of having to carry around a gigantic and also really heavy 150 - 600 mm lens (2 kg) and, therefore, decided to get this Canon RF 100-400 lens to complement my 150 - 600 Tamron. And I must say, I am very impressed!

The image quality is a lot better (as is the focus) and cropped images look about as sharp at 400 mm (if not sharper) than 600 mm uncropped images before.

Definitely much more enjoyable just walking around / going for a hike with this kit. I barely notice that I have my camera with me at all!

Here's a quick test image I took yesterday. Nothing special, just for testing.

They were one of the birds that could have been German Bird Of The Year 2023, but unfortunately they lost against the whinchat. Such lovely colours though!

I posted some chicks earlier, so here's an adult from a few months ago when they were still a bit friendlier. Right now they're much more secretive because they have to take care of the chicks.

The moorhens have finally gotten some chicks — the chicks themselves don't seem too happy, though!

There is a pair of Red-Backed Shrikes in my neighbourhood that I haven't yet been able to see. I knew, however, where they typically hang out so I went there yesterday with my camera and tripod, set up the camera to point and potential perches and finally managed to see them and take a few short videos!

Their German name, Neuntöter, translates to "Nine Killer". It is said that they kill nine things before they actually eat one. This isn't actually too far fetched as Red-Backed Shrikes kill insects, small rodents or baby birds and hang them up on thorny bushes and other plants for later. The bush the female is perched on later on in the video is a blackberry bush which has thorns.

I‘m relatively new to birding and don’t have a car (or a driving license) so my lifer count isn’t all that high yet.

I started almost exactly a year ago (around the end of June 2022) and am now at just under 110 lifers. Most of these were seen around my neighborhood or in nearby towns. There’s a few nice nature reserves that are somewhat easy to reach by train, bus and bicycle and I’m intending on going there a bit more frequently once I get my new bike!

How about you? Oh and I’m from Bielefeld, a city in North-Western Germany.

Wagtails are always fun to watch! Here's a White Wagtail I saw on my morning walk hovering above the (honestly rather disgusting-looking) water with its mouth already full of insects. Seen at a pond in Bielefeld, Germany.

Went for a walk and managed to take a photo of a bird I hadn't been able to photograph yet: A Spotted Flycatcher!

Its German name, Grauschnäpper, translates to "Grey Snatcher" — probably because it likes snatching flies and other insects!

One of the artificial lakes here (Bielefeld, Germany) has been drained, presumably to have it cleaned.

There’s tonnes of trash and even some shopping carts at the bottom of it. One of the local coots seems to like one of the carts and made its nest on top of it.

Anyway, I did not expect there to be any other kinds wildlife there at the moment - but it seems as if the Black-Headed Gulls love this very shallow lake with lots of dirt islands in it!

So I went there yesterday evening and tried my hand at some flight shots. I’m still pretty bad at it, but I got a few that are okay.