Tag Archives: tufted duck

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 →

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 →

Little Grebe

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Today I returned to the congregation on the river and was surprised to find not only that the location and number of birds seemed to be the same, but also that all of the individuals I recognized from the day before were bobbing around in roughly the same places in the water. The splotchy hybrids were still keeping together on the far end of the group, and a recognizable coot with an injured wing was keeping close to the very same bit of shore as yesterday. The neat little group of tufted ducks must have been swimming all day to stay in the very same spot. So it appears that waterfowl are creatures of habit this time of year. I think that it is a lucky thing to find recognizable individuals among the masses, as it gives one a feeling of connection to an otherwise strange group of foreign creatures, all indistinguishable from one another. Continue reading →

Waterfowl

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When I woke up this morning I had an itch to look at ducks. This time of year is good for finding rare or unusual ducks hiding out in larger groups of more common waterfowl. So today after coffee Ilarion and I walked along the Spree until we found a large gathering of birds bobbing around together in an elbow of the river not far from our apartment. Continue reading →