My best birding day EVER!

okay, so maybe that is just a little bit exaggerated, but last Sunday really was an awesome birding day: it is not often that I see a good number of species that I think: "WOW! Didn't expect to see you here!"

Easter Sunday saw me going out for a bit of a wander at my local patch, the Inzinger Gaisau, a calling and drumming Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Kleinspecht) was the first bird that made me think: Nice.

But it was the Bluethroat (Blaukehlchen)

Common Snipe (Bekasine)

2 skulking Jacksnipe (Zwergschnepfe), and

2 Ring Ousel (Ringdrossel) feeding in the fields with Song Thrush (Ring Ousel is normally only found at about 1700m and above here, not at 650m asl),

that really made the morning special.

Bluethroat digiscoped on the Kazakhstani steppes last year. Swarovski Optik ATM 80HD, 25-50x zoom, DCB digiscoping adapter, Canon A590IS.

In the afternoon, Barbara and I headed down to Brixleg to go for a walk in the castle's old gardens (Schloss Matzen). There too were a good few Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers starting to breed, but it was the crazy duck on the Inn that was really special:

A single male Common Scoter (Trauerente)

Despite the name, it really is far from common here. In fact, they are more than a little rare in Tirol.

I added this photo to give an idea of how hard it was to get any photos of the duck. It was raining hard, the light was very very poor and all I had was a cheap compact camera (Canon A590 IS) and a really good pair of binoculars (new SLC HD), all done through trees. Digibinning at its extreme!

Happy birding,

Dale Forbes

Diginocking in the mountains

After last weeks' fun taking photos through my ELs, I decided to do a little more of it this morning. Last night we had taken a hike back in to the mountains to a most gorgeous of spot: Solsteinhaus, a hut set way back in the mountains on the edge of my favorite mountain in the whole wide world (Große Solstein - on the right in the first photo).


I was admittedly lazy in getting up this morning, but when I got out there was still something to be seen. The Alpine Accentors were not very vocal at all and we ended up playing an interminable game of hide and go seek. I was not the one hiding. No useful photos there.

But the Ring Ousels were far more obliging. Weary, but far more interested in singing from the "tree" tops to be too worried about me. I don't have the little Snap Shot Adapter anymore - it was borrowed - so these were all taken by just holding my camera to the binoculars. As you can see, I am still learning how to focus effectively.

I also spent some time trying to get some shots of the Crossbills, but they were proving elusive:

catching one taking off was completely by accident:


Here is a habitat shot:
Mostly grassland with some stunted trees (mostly below head hight). Also about were some Grey Wagtails, Wheatears, a couple of ravens and a few other little bits and pieces.

A couple of digibinned insects:

This digibinning thing really is a whole lot of fun. and it means that I can still take bird photos even if my huge digiscoping setup is a home.

Happy birding
Dale

Epic birding in the high alps

Last week Andy (Schwarzenberger) and I went on a most epic of bird walks.

Well, maybe that does not completely capture the experience; "bird walk" for me conjures up images of late morning strolls, twenty 50-somethings, compact Nikon binoculars and botanical gardens where chit chatting is somewhat more important than finding birds.

Last week's walk was a far cry from duck ponds and park benches. We left the Kühtai pond (Sellraintal) at 5am and headed up one of the valleys to the South West. Our mission: to do a bird survey up in to the higher Alps. Kühtai itself is at 2020m asl and is one of my favorite ski resorts, but there is almost no snow left in the valley. As we headed up the valley, we found more and more snow. But still, the Great Tits were out and about, as usual, making a lot of noise. But it was the Ring Ousels that got my attention. And there were lots of them about. Nuthatches, Wrens and Bramblings added to the morning chorus.

Near the edge of the tree line, the bird diversity dropped substantially, but there were certainly lots of, taking advantage of the open land and melting snow. Everywhere we turned our ears, the pipits were out calling.


A little way up the path we started to get in to deeper and then deeper snow, and pretty soon there was only snow and boulders to be seen. It was way up here in the snow that we picked up our first Alpine Accentors (Alpenbraunelle) and Wheatears. Chattering away, the wheatears buzzed from boulder to boulder showing off their gorgeous colours - what a sight!

Early on, I tried my hardest to get some good views of the alpine accentors. Little did I know that as we neared the peaks/ridges we would be seeing them up close (but to be honest, at that stage I was more interested in not falling off a cliff or disappearing in an avalanche than studying pretty little birdies). Anyhow, these alpine accentors truly have interesting sex lives. For those of you with a sesquipedalian penchant, their breeding system is called polygynandry, in which about 3-5 males defend a group territory that encompasses 2-3 spatially separated females (cf. Heer 1996 Journal of Ornithology 137/1). Despite a dominance structure, they are highly promiscuous and offspring can be sired by numerous males (three males in Heer 1996!). Individuals feed in very loose associations (or completely independently) and dominant males tend to dedicate more time to feeding than subordinate ones (Janiga & Movotna 2006 Ornis Fennica 83). Not surprisingly, the alpine accentors tend to choose a diet rich in lipids during the winter, presumably for their high energy content (Ibid).

In this higher zone, we also came across Alpine Choughs, Snow Finches, and calling Ptarmigans. The Alpine Marmots also kept us entertained as they ran about through the snow and boulders.

Along the highest ridges, the going was steep, we had no idea where the path was, and were trudging through waist-deep snow. The fog was thick, but we were pretty sure there was a good view from up there. At some stage we decided to throw caution in to the wind and just slide down the snow slope on our bums and try to find the trail again at a lower altitude.



It seems that many high alpine species are adversely affected by ski-pistes; either through disturbance and stress (Arlettaz, Patthey, Baltic, Leu, Schaub, Palme & Jenni-Eiermann 2007 Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274/1614), or the reduction in the quality of open habitats (Rolando, Caprio, Rinaldi & Ellena 2007 Journal of Applied Ecology 44/1). Many of these detrimental effects can be minimized by only skiing on or close to pistes, creating "no skiing" wilderness areas, and by the careful construction of pistes (low-invasiveness, only using heavy equipment where absolutely necessary, and focusing only on the removal of potentially dangerous boulders).