After dinner tonight I looked over the balcony and saw this marvelous bird gracefully swooping to catch insects a few feet above the grass. It catches its dinner by repeatedly flying in short loops, taking a brief rest between each loop. It maneuvers wonderfully, flies upside-down and seems to pause mid-air when catching a bug. This is the first Spotted Flycatcher I’ve seen!
This juvenile Moorhen was slurping up slime in the Englischer Garten the other day, looking very much like a dinosaur.
I caught this Grey Heron catching a fish in the Spree yesterday evening.
Trying to photograph birds will drive any sane person mad, but photographing bats is pure madness. Every evening at dusk a stream of bats flies out of a small opening above our drainpipe. The bats fly in large circles around the yard and even circle through our balcony area, driving our cat wild. Last night I was mad enough to try to capture one, so I stood on the balcony for some time, shooting randomly into the dark in the hopes that one of these swift creatures would happen to be flying across my viewfinder. And I caught some! They are blurry, but they are mine.
I suppose that I am so used to seeing the sleek bodies of birds in my viewfinder that I was a little shocked when I saw the images I captured. They truly are winged mice flying through the night! While standing so close to them as they flew out I noticed that they made swishing sounds, as if their wings were made of satin.
Unfortunately I don’t know anything about bat identification, so I can’t tell you what species these are. If anyone has any hints, please let me know.
I finally found the Icterine Warbler here in Berlin! Just when I was beginning to believe that this bird is a mythical creature, I ran into two of them fighting in the trees on my way to get coffee this morning.
I was too non-caffeinated to know what I was hearing: my first thought was that a few nightingales decided to speak a different language today. This bird has a very wild song that cycles through an incredible variety of calls, trills, whistles and buzzes. At times it sounded as if an entire aviary was concentrated into one point in the tree. After staring in frustration at a bunch of trees and nearly twisting my ankle on the curb while trying to follow the sound, I decided it would be safer for everyone if I went on to my coffee. Happily this guy was still singing and yelling and jumping around all over the place when I returned, and with my sharpened senses and quickened reflexes I was able to capture a few shots of him. His friend/enemy had flown off to a nearby tree, but was singing just as madly in the distance.
You can see a video of him here. (Unfortunately he really wanted to show me his butt for the video, sorry.)
Thanks Steve for letting me know about this bird!
This juvenile robin was waiting so patiently under the ferns for someone to come and feed him.
The proud parent!
After so many days of rain I was so happy to finally have the chance to wander through the Tiergarten this afternoon. In my search for shy creatures I found a shady clearing where I could photograph this little chaffinch undisturbed by dogs and bicycles.
At the edge of the clearing a blackbird was belting it out as usual, his song mixing with that of a very loud blackcap and a few other blackbirds in the area. I was snapping away when all of a sudden the chaffinch was missing from my viewfinder, the blackcap was quiet, and the blackbirds’ songs changed to a series of short, high pitched notes.
The sound reminded me of something, and I remembered this post that I read the other day describing the call that American Robins make when a hawk is nearby. This gave me the brilliant idea that I should stop staring at the barren ground through the viewfinder, remove my face from the back of the camera, and look up. And lo and behold…
right above me was a Northern Goshawk. It only stayed for a few seconds before flying off as silently as it arrived. The blackbirds immediately returned to their loud songs, but I couldn’t find my chaffinch again.
Contemplating a bath…
Losing balance
First the head…
then the rest.
After this, the jay flew into a nearby tree to preen and dry off.
She was escorting her chicks down the Spree on Sunday.
