Posts Tagged: main

Splash!

While the heron tends to move around with a gentle flap of its wings, it takes out the smallest and fastest animals when hunting: mice, frogs, hamsters… but it’s not called the “Fischreiher” (fish heron) in German for nothing, as it  actually lives on banks and floodplains. The increased rainfall and resulting floods in recent years have created new wetlands – both voluntary and involuntary – and the heron population has increased significantly.

The big guy I was watching here took at least one fish out of the water during the 20 minutes and came away empty-handed twice.

Mighty wings

I’m back where I didn’t really want to be: too little time to do things right. How do you notice that? In this specific case, I no longer had enough daylight until I could go out with the camera… but whatever? The birds stay with me and this buzzard also allowed me to take a few nice photos, albeit with too high an ISO, which is why this picture was more of an attempt at art than a pure photo. Too many branches, but otherwise okay.

talking to a buzzard

Not much time left for the fine things in live when you gotta job to do. Yesterday I rushed home, grabbed my camera, hopped on my bike and got to the Carl Ulrich Brücke where I got a flat tire. Walking from here, only left me with  one hour for getting to the renatured grounds on the Fechenheim side – not much, but it turned out to be worthwhile.

I already could hear this buzzard scream, while I was climbing down the steep steps at the bridge. A few meters away there was a tiny path leading to another billabong that I never noticed. Bushes flanked both sides, so I had kind of a natural cover. Of course it noticed me first and flew off, screaming all the time. I started to whistle an answer, trying to imitate its call and suddenly it flew right above the small trees, right over my head. This game continued for a couple more rounds and ended, while lady with a huge dog appeared and shied it away.

Guess, I never got that close to a buzzard and it was a really touching experience. While looking through the net, I found a recent article from NABU, saying that buzzards are known to protect their nests against jogger, even attacking them. It was screaming before I got near and so I want to believe that it was calling for its offspring and not shouting at me to get lost.

 

fly like an egyptian

Egyptian gooses are common place right now. A couple of years they where seldom guests in germany, but due to warm winters and the clima shift in general, they are everywhere to be seen. The bad thing about them is that they drive the old inhabitans of like the normal ducks out off their habitats…. well, where did I hear this already… ahh yes, the squirrels. Same here. World is changing constantly – mostly due to our intermission.