Not only am I colorblind, but I also often have “scales over my eyes” (or just a bit of poor eyesight); I stood for a good five minutes in front of the bush where this yellowhammer was trilling its little tune. It must have been sitting right in front of my nose at eye level—and as you can see in the photos, it wasn’t hiding in the dark thicket but sitting quite out in the open. With plumage and a song like that, you *want* to be heard and, above all, seen! I crept closer, and then—as so often happens—I got too close; I only spotted the bird when it flew up into the tree above me. Well, that means I ended up with shots from the “cheap seats” (10 meters further down) instead of nice portraits, but you do get to see another resident of Rügen: mosquitoes… they are everywhere in droves. A nuisance for us, but surely a tasty snack for some birds.

Fun fact: In English, the bird is called a “Yellowhammer”! Was Arnie along for the birding trip? “Dis iz a Yellowhammer!” — or did we in Germany just lose the “h”? 😉