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The return of the Old Man

10,000 Birds

According to Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World , a handsome volume written by James Hancock, James Kushan and Philip Kohl and published by Academic Press in 1992, Geronticus eremita “once nested in the mountains of central Europe, across northern Africa and into the Middle East. But this range is now much reduced.

Morocco 213
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Old World waterfowl… and other waterfowl in the Old World

10,000 Birds

As I mentioned last week, my wife, son, and daughter-in-law spent much of the month of October in Europe. Visiting the continent after the end of most of the autumn migration meant that the number of bird species I could see in northern France, Switzerland, southern Germany, and Austria was much reduced.

Austria 122
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Finding Dippers in Berlin

10,000 Birds

Here in central Europe, dippers – more precisely the White-throated or European Dipper – are rather common breeding birds in many areas. In Germany for example, they are breeding in practically every hilly or mountainous region south of the North German Plain and are not really rare if they occur in a certain region.

Germany 100
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Greater Rheas: Germany’s new Big Bird

10,000 Birds

Germany is underrated as a birding destination. Nestled right in the middle of Europe, we have a little bit of everything, a nice cross section of Europe’s avifauna. Greater Rheas, a species the Germans call Nandu, are very popular in Germany and frequently kept in zoos as well as private enclosures.

Germany 237
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The squirrel next door

10,000 Birds

And the squirrel I will post about is indeed what it seems : a cute, little, ferocious, nest-predatory, butt-kicking, cuddly and adorable native critter of Europe, the Eurasian Red Squirrel. Germany, like most of Europe and very much unlike North America, is home to only one species of squirrel. And aren’t you glad it is.

Squirrels 162
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Leaping Foxes

10,000 Birds

Germany is currently experiencing something for which the English have no nice expression. In German, if you are a rodent and you are smaller than – say – a human hand, you’re a mouse. In Germany, our most common large mammalian predator is the Red Fox Vulpes vulpes. You’re not a vole or a gerbil.

Fox 163
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Birding Shanghai in December 2023

10,000 Birds

But not in Europe either. One of these pages is dedicated to the harm and benefit the species has for humans, while a full page is dedicated to instructions on how to hunt the bird: The translation of the first sentence indicates the general tone: “They are not very shy, and easy to shoot.” Not an in-vitro photo.

Birds 179