A flock of cranes in front of the early sun. Shot in Linum, Germany.
Category Archives: Animals
Hen Harrier
Hen Harriers, like the other members of the family “Circinae” are easily distinguishable from other birds of prey because of their interesting style of hunting. The are flying quite low over the ground and do rather “random” movements with sudden stops, turns and hits to the ground. This is one of the females. The male was in the area, too – but was too far away for me.
Great Bustard
Currently no mating season, so this great bustards don’t “display” themselves yet. But next month they will “dance” for their hens and show the full beauty of their plumage. Shoot a little west of Ribbeck in Brandenburg.
Big Ball Small Birds
The big red glowing thing we call sun. And small Birds, mostly seagulls, in front of it.
Milvus Milvus
What a surprise. This Red Kite isn’t suppose to be here, yet. I am not sure if he never left for the wintering place or is already back. But whatever, its nice to see him.
Mr and Ms Tufted
This bird above is Ms Tufted Duck. Her Husband is down here. They are currently chilling on the Tegeler See in Berlin. They belong to the diving ducks.
Kestrelness
OR.. Female Kestrel. Falconerin… You get the idea. Because the most falcon pics in my Blog are of tercels.
In German its just “Weib”.
Cormorants
Cormorants are somewhat hard to take pictures of. There are rather shy in my area so you cant get close to them. Additionally they are mostly black, which is hard to take pics of, too. Currently I really try to take pics of then.The first one on the top is in the late evening at Lake Tegel in Berlin.
Cormorants are really good at diving for fish.
Calm Lake
Late evening. We had finally some clear skys. Now that the sun nearly left there is only a soft haze of orange left.
Rarity – Snow Bunting
A snow bunting!. In the first moment I couldn’t relate this to anything. This bird don’t belong here and is a rarity in Germany. IF then they visit the Baltic Sea in small flocks, but not this abandoned airport in Brandenburg. This one was especially weird as it was totally alone.
I laid down on the landing runway and waited. After some time of distrust it began to accept my proximity and fed on the grass which broke up the pavement.
The Mandarin
You can easily tell that they don’t belong here. With only a few exceptions we really don’t have those intense colorful birds. Beautiful colored by the late evening light they really stand out of the rather greyisch boring surrounding here at Tegeler Lake.
(thanks to Dadriel for finding them)
Tree Sparrow
What a small fluffball. Good that they are making alot of noise, otherwise i just had walked past them.
Hunting Kestrel
A male common kestrel. Looking around for food. Its an cold day and the earth is covered in snow. This male is looking around for mice to hunt.
Apparently he found something interesting. Starting in to the Air!
A few beats of his wings later hes up in the air, hovering above a promising area of mice pee.
Touchdown!. Hes hiding his prey so we can’t see if he was successful. But, a nice back you have there.
But, he really has something. Thats nice. Only 20% of every try is successful. But this male is quite experienced.
A good day for a falcon. A rather bad day day for the mouse.
Kladow – Berlin
Kladow, a small village between Berlin and Brandenburg is a perfect breeding spot for cormorants. They just started to fight for the nests and get a partner. I didnt see much of them yet, but I guess there will be more to see in the next weeks. Hopefully with good weather. The place has more than just them. I guess I go a little bit wild on the sun reflection from the Water ;)
Sniff Sniff
An European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) sniffing around. Maybe it wind me, but maybe its just interested were the best food is. This was a small group of 3 animals crossing the field on the Area of the Schönerlinder Lakes in Berlin. I was laying on the ground where I was shooting white and great egrets. But – why not? You take what you get, right?
Shot with the 500mm f4 + 1,4TC.
Angry Hooded Bird
Hooded Crows looking somewhat like Angry Birds. The first nice day in “weeks” (a little bit exaggerated ;)). There are still lots of crows on the Tempelhof Airfield.
Egrets
On my way back from Hannover to Berlin I always stop at Ilkerbruch. This time I had very low sun shining directly in my face (and lense…) so I had edgelight and a very hard contrast which worked quite well for this Great Egret (Ardea alba).
Snowy Buzzard
Common Buzzard in the Snow. Successful hunting some mice. Really a cold day. But! At least we had some sun so the light is less boring than the last days, weeks…
Good Evening
A very cold evening at the former Tempelhofer Airfield. Swarms of hooded crow came together to feed, sleep and enjoying the very last shafts of sunlight. Roughly 250 birds come together to fill the trees around.
An Avian Lovestory (multiple pictures)
“Hey my dear hooded crow, where are you?”
“Here I am! – Even walking in the air to be faster with you!”
“Oh, there you are! – I am already raising my tailfeathers for you.”
“Before we can ‘go birding’ lets dance a little bit”
“Oh, you are a really bad dancer – And its already late, I’ll have to go”
“Noo, wait! I can learn!”
