Since I
last posted the legendary green and white army finally failed to clinch a
birding trip to Moscow. Not so much their fault as a deranged Romanian referee
who saw a penalty no one else saw. It's been a while since I posted, due to the
usual circumstances of travel, tiredness and then the worst cold I have had in
a long time. This attacked me in Bolton almost two weeks ago and I am still
struggling to do much without having to sit down and recover. The 48 hour
jaunt to Basel with GAWA probably contributed to tiredness and made the cold
that much worse. The 0 - 0 draw was actually a good result for an away
trip but the penalty that never was in Belfast stopped my Russian list getting
off the ground.
By
working a late flight from Basel on Monday I managed to get a day's birding
there. I linked up with a local birder known only as Mcnswiss2 who suggested
the area around the Swiss Deer Park. This is close to the River Weise which is
a tributary of the Rhine and both banks of the river are covered in mixed
deciduous forest. This looked good for woodpeckers and also had the
potential of late storks and flyover cranes. (A white stork was seen the day
before and cranes the day after.) Target birds were woodpeckers, short toed
treecreeper or continental long-tailed tits.
Unfortunately
Mcnswiss2 was on holiday in Majorca and was posting mouth watering sightings on
the Majorcan bird forum page.( ww.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=337219&page=62 ) Follow him on to pages 63 and
64 as well. Then the deer park, which is a small free private zoo was closed
despite never ever closing!! Apparently it was a one day health and safety
issue but that meant I spent a lot of time in and around the river area finding
some feeding areas and a canal area I might otherwise have missed. The Swiss
transport system is free for visitors which made getting around really easy, so
I was so soon heading down a suburban road which gave house sparrows, great
tits, GSW and blackbird. The deer park entrance area gave good views of magpie,
jays, another gsw, buzzard, black-headed gulls and carrion crows. Having
decided the zoo was closed I walked towards the river which was in flood.
There's a path up top along the dyke, then a parallel path about 10 - 20 metres
away from the river but lower down. A look at Google showed several
crossing points upstream so I was able to wander up and downstream along and
away from the river while checking every tree in the area. All photos using an
ipod, hand luggage only.
 |
| Tucked in to the bank out of the current |
 |
| Just chillin' |
The
river came up trumps with 6 goosander and heron and I eventually found
the first of three small feeding stations which pulled in great tit, blue
tit, nuthatch and marsh/willowtit. Northern Ireland has neither so I'm
always playing catch up, but have seen willow regularly in Northumberland and
Manchester. I've only seen marsh tit once in Beds but I felt I was
looking at them again. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to
contact Mcnswiss2 in Majorca re the default tit in the area to be told it was
marsh tit - happy days. Having been advised to keep looking up for late storks
which breed in the zoo I was presently surprised to see Egyptian geese flying
around. These are all round London but I wasn't expecting to see them in Basel.
Two of the three feeding stations gave very good views of red squirrels
which I haven't seen for some time. I spent some time at each one simply
observing and picked up robin and chaffinch.
| Very well camouflaged squirrel |
| If you build it they will come |
 |
| Must be a treecreeper here somewhere!! |
The canal
area, like the river, was brown and flooded and I only saw mallard and grey
heron. By early afternoon I had criss crossed the area several times and
decided to follow the Weise towards its confluence with the Rhine and Basel
harbour at Kleinhuhningen The river course here is urban but the walkway
follows the bank down to the Rhine. The walk added grey wagtail and the
river/harbour area held cormorants, tufted, pochard, little grebe, more
goosanders herring gull and a large flock of Mute swans on the
French side of the river. It was strange to see gulls and cormorants so far
from the sea. If they came up the Rhine it is over 750 miles.
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| Confluence |
| The mighty Rhine 750 miles from the sea!! |
By the
time I walked back to the Deer Park (still closed) I was tiring, light was
dropping and temperatures dropped as well. One more circuit of the river and
time to head for the bus, but about 100 m from the exit tunnel a small tit
flock caught my eye and I scanned it hoping for long tails, no luck only great
tits but lo and behold a treecreeper sneaked past up the trunk. I got
good silhouettes as it climbed three trees and then I lost it. I would
have liked better views of my second only short toed treecreeper but
I'll take it - the last bird of the day. My appetite was whetted in Basel and I
would have a notion of going back for a holiday, there's not many places sit
easily on the borders of three countries and gives free transport to visitors.
Thanks to Mcnswiss2 for help and guidance on the day. If I make it back, and
Tanya seems interested we'll maybe get that trip.
Back home
both patches are below their targets and WOW was very quiet although the
feeders pulled in bullfinch, reed bunting and redpoll. Teal number over 300 and
common gulls are re-appearing while coot have disappeared. The area out front
remained moorhen central.
 |
| Peak count was 97 |
2017
210: Egyptian goose
211: Marsh tit
212: Short-toed treecreeper
Bangor West
67: Greylag
Belfast WOW
98: Meadow pipit
99: Razorbill
