Tag Archives: great tit

More listening

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Today I noticed that my camera battery had died, just after I left the house to go observing. This turned out to be a good thing, as I decided to focus on listening again, and to see if I could identify not only every bird that I saw, but also every bird that I heard. I walked by the Spree, where in the past months the waterfowl would be hanging around in their usual spots. But now, thanks to the constant parade of pleasure boats that churn up and down the river as soon as the weather improves, there was hardly a duck or coot to be seen, and no more swans or grebes or moorhens at all. (Many of these seem to have relocated to the pond in the Englischer Garten.)

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Visitors

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HawfinchThe last few weeks were abnormally cold and snowy here in Berlin. These conditions not only meant that the birds were hungry, but also that I didn’t get out much to observe them. To remedy this situation I covered the window boxes on my balcony with sunflower seeds every morning, and soon found that I had many visitors. Above is one of a troop of hawfinches that would appear every morning.

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Greyness, and a wren

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Crows in greyness
The last few days have been exceptionally grey here in Berlin. So to cheer myself up yesterday I went to visit my old colleagues at Allianz Climate Solutions for lunch.

Allianz tower I used to work near the very top of this tower, the tallest building in Berlin. I had an incredible view from my office and would see many birds, migrating or hanging around in the Spree, making concentration rather difficult! After lunch yesterday I decided to spend some time with the birds that I used to only watch from afar. Treptower Park is right next to the tower, so I took a little walk there. Continue reading →

Birds these days…

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are getting very loud, and starting to get on my nerves.

Unfortunately, today was not a day for wandering around in the park, but a day where I needed to stay inside and get some real work done on the computer. To help me out, some bird stayed outside, in the same spot, all day long, and sang for me. He chose to sing the same song for the entirety of the day. This song he chose consisted of only two notes, his favorite notes of the highest pitch, and never, ever, varied. It went something like this:

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An Hour’s Walk

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Flying Coot

Today was the first full sunny day in as long as I can remember. We have had a few hours of sun here and there over the past few weeks, but it has always passed quickly and never seems to totally dispel the gloom. But today was different, and I took advantage of it by taking a meandering route on my errands. First I stopped by the gathering in the Spree, to check on the usual crowd. I didn’t see the little grebe this time, but everyone else was there. A man on the opposite bank was throwing bread in the water, so the whole mass of birds slowly moved into his vicinity, making quite a ruckus on the way. The coots are very funny when they decide to fly. They begin by running along the water, kicking it up behind them, and flapping their wings like mad. When they finally alight it seems a marvel that they can fly at all. Above is a photo of one of the coots about to take off. Continue reading →