Saturday, October 22, 2016

Birding in the Rhine Delta

The Rhine delta is probably the best place on Lake Constance to go birding. It is in Austria, in the province of Vorarlberg, though most of the lake's shoreline is in Switzerland and Germany. During the last week, a Red Phalarope has been reported from the delta. I went there two days ago with no luck. I finally successfully twitched the bird today and although I only got fairly distant views I was extremely happy when I found this rare bird.

 I walked into the small viewing platform at the delta, where birders were lying on the floor taking pictures of birds. Finally, when the phalarope turned up on a mudflat, I managed to get a few pictures, albeit blurry ones . Unfortunately, the phalarope left the mudflat after that and was out of sight at times, although I did get to witness its strange feeding habit, where it spins around in circles to lift food from the bottom, creating a small whirlpool. Although the phalarope was by far the rarest bird there, I also got to see Water Rails and Spotted Crakes up close.

Red Phalarope

Red Phalarope

Water Rail

Spotted Crake

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Welcome to my Blog & About me

Welcome to my new blog about birds and birding. My name is Ben and I am an Austrian-American living in Switzerland, a great country for birding with many birding opportunities ranging from trekking in the mountains to taking boat trips on vast lakes. I created this blog because there is very little information about birding in Switzerland on the internet, although there is a great diversity of birds here. On this blog I will be writing about birding experiences in Switzerland and abroad, writing about birding tips and doing reviews that relate to birds and birding. Every summer and for about two weeks around Christmas the posts will be about birding in the U.S since I go there every year during these times to visit my family.
Happy birding!