Hamburg, Germany 08.04. – 15.04.2018

For eight days we visited my grandparents in Hamburg, Germany. Despite the unfortunately short visit, we had a great time with the family. Birding was more or less limited to the bird feeder outside the house due to the bad weather, but this gave me excellent opportunity to observe the birds at close range. Another great part of the trip was that I finally got a new lens, the Nikon 200-500 mm, and since I only used my father’s old 300mm manual focus lens previously, I spent much time testing it. The bird feeder was always alive with birds, so I spent most of my time out in the cold trying to get used to the lens.

 

 

 

 

The garden attracted mainly common and widespread species but some less ordinary birds, at least for the area, were also present. The most common visitors to the feeder were tits, and five species regularly came in to feed. Great and Blue Tits were practically living on the feeder, and Long-tailed, Coal and Marsh Tits regularly paid a short visit. Eurasian Jay was also very common, as was Common Chaffinch. Other birds that were around every day were Common Wood Pigeon, Eurasian Wren, Dunnock, Common Bullfinch, Greenfinch, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Eurasian Nuthatch, while less regularly a Hawfinch, was hopping around on the ground, feeding on the seeds the Great Tits spilled (I don’t know why they did this but the tits often pecked around in the seeds like crazy without eating anything). One morning, a Middle Spotted Woodpecker made a briefl appearance at the feeder, but immediately flew off again. A small wetland area close to the house held nothing special, species seen here were Mallard, Great Crested Grebe, Common Buzzard and Greylag and Canada Goose, amongst others. In the last two summers we saw Eurasian Woodcock flying around at dusk, which was quite special. My father and I visited the Kupferteich one evening but didn’t see much, however nice birds were a Common Crane calling impressively and flying overhead and a Common Pheasant.

 

 

 

 

We visited the Wedeler Elbmarschen on the second last day. This is a large mud flat and agricultural area along the river Elbe and one of the best birding areas in the Hamburg area. The weather unfortunately was very bad, with some drizzling and very cold and strong wind. Still, the birds were present and I saw surprising five lifers, which is because I never went birding in Germany at this time of the year. Huge flocks of Barnacle Goose were on the fallow fields, which was very impressive to watch, but scanning through the flocks didn’t reveal any other goose species. Passerines were reluctant to show themselves because of the weather but Meadow Pipit was regular, as were Eurasian Skylark and Reed Bunting. Water birds at the hides of the Carl Zeiss Vogelstation included Northern Shoveler, Eurasian Wigeon, Gadwall, Great Cormorant, Little Ringed Plover, Eurasian Oystercatcher, Common Snipe and Pied Avocet amongst others.  We only stayed for a short while due to the weather.

 

 

 

 

On the last day, the garden was also visited by a small number of Brambling and the large Mistle Thrush in the company of the more common Song Thrush.