January 1st in Berlin (1 Viewer)

[pandachris]

Hi

We're coming to Berlin for Sylvester and hope to be out on the streets until the early hours enjoying the celebrations. We won't be going for a big day list to get 2012 underway but if the weather is reasonable we will almost certainly want to get a bit of a head-clearing walk done and I'm sure that one or two pairs of binoculars will find their way into our hand luggage.

Can anyone recommend any suitable parks or similar locations where we might find a few birds, within public transport or walking reach of our hotel on Alexanderplatz?

 

[birdingberlin]

Hello
Near the Alexanderplatz you´ll find a pair peregrine falcon .the breeding place is in the red town hall.
another place to see some birds is the Schloßpark Charlottenburg with many mandarine ducks and a pair goshawk easy to find (when they will scream) and all the common park birds included middle spotted woodpecker.
with a little bit luck the müggelsee will be a good place to see some migrants,like red throated diver,arctic loon and great scaup.
the chance to see gulls goosander and white tailed eagle is good.
i think the weather in nothern and eastern area is still to good and theres no big migration.
hope you can read my bad english and this will help you.

best wishes
bernd

 

[pandachris]

Thanks Bernd. No problems at with the English, which is 10,000x better than my German, which just about extends to ordering a couple of currywurst and a coffee - and I don't much like coffee

MS Woodpecker has got me interested. It's the one European Woodpecker species that has eluded us so far. I won't get my hopes up too much but I'll be researching Schloßpark Charlottenburg.

 

[birdingberlin]

Best chance to see the MSW is there .But i think its only one pair in whole park.
http://maps.google.de/maps/ms?msid=...0&ll=52.52677,13.291531&spn=0.000896,0.002642

very good chance to see a MSW is there
http://maps.google.de/maps/ms?msid=...=0&ll=52.49982,13.22843&spn=0.001793,0.005284
Four Woodpecker species breeding in the forest around the Teufelsberg.
Have a good time in berlin and nice birds

best regards
bernd

 

[ychri]

hello Chris,

good luck! i've spotted the msw in this area:

area near river havel/grunewald

how to get there:
public transport

@ Bernd: nach dem msw muss ich im schlosspark mal die augen aufhalten! ich wusste gar nicht, dass es den da gibt! danke für den hinweis

greetings & best wishes for a happy new year, ¥vonne

 

[pandachris]

Thanks both. I did try to respond earlier but couldn't get logged in.

Despite the weather we made it down to Schloßpark Charlottenburg yesterday and got great views of Goshawk (near what I think was the Mausoleum) and also at least 6 Hawfinches, probably of more interest to birders visiting from the UK than to locals, in the tall trees in the area with formally laid out hedges near the west? wing of the palace, or on the left if you look down the grounds with palace behind you. Red Squirrel here, too.

We had a good look at a couple of GSWs but no MSWs. Must have been post-Chrismas confusion though, because we have seen them before on a couple of occasions - it's Three-toed that are stil missing from our list.

A memorable trip to Berlin, made all the better by an enjoyable couple of hours birding, with an interlude for a superb cake (exit the park from the NE corner over the railway bridge and walk a couple of hundred metres south on the major road) when the rain became too much of a chore. We hope to be back for Sylvester 2012.

 

[pandachris]

Hi

We're back in Berlin for the New Year celebrations but this time we've got a few more days. We'll definitely return to the Schloßpark Charlottenburg and might well have a look at one or more of Teufelberg and Muggelsee.

We might also take a train trip outside Berlin. Any recommendations? It will be a day trip, so would need to be a reasonably short journey and preferably on a route with plenty of trains. Is Rostock worth a look, selected simply on the basis that it is coastal and probably fits my criteria? We're not commited to coastal though. Somewhere scenic with forests would do just as well.

 

[Captain_of_Crunch]

Away from Berlin these two sites may be of interest:

(1) Guelper See: A good site for wintering geese, ducks, swans and White-tailed Eagle. About 80 Kms west of Berlin. There is a good map of the site here. Using Bahn.de, just enter "Prietzen, Havelaue" as your destination to see the travel options from Berlin.

(2) Havellandisches Luch: One of only three sites for Great Bustards in Germany. Rough-legged Buzzard and White-tailed Eagle, as well as wintering geese are very likely here. To reach the site, you need to take the train to Nennhausen (about 1 hour from Berlin) and then get a taxi to the nearby village of Buckow (4 kms). There are two trails from here to observation towers from which to look for the Great Bustards.

 

[pandachris]

Thanks CofC - I'll have a look at those. Re Havellandisches Luch, I'm guessing that it won't be too tricky to get a taxi from the station, but what about getting back there?

 

[ychri]

public transport

hello Chris,

i am not sure that you will get a taxi in nennhausen... be prepared to walk both the 4 km distances.
unfortunately, the public transport is a problem in the whole area of brandenburg.

if you frequently visit berlin this may be an interesting book for you:

http://www.amazon.de/Birdwatching-G...9507/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355212851&sr=8-1

with english customer review:
http://www.amazon.com/Birdwatching-...=Birdwatching+Guide+to+Brandenburg+and+Berlin

the baltic sea is always worth a trip. maybe I pass sylvester there avoiding the berlin chaos ;-)
but generally using the car I can't suggest a spot that is suitable to reach it by train for a day trip.

greetings, yvonne

 

[pandachris]

Thanks for the warning, Yvonne.

As far as I can tell, there is only one taxi operator in Nennhausen, Karl Lieck. However I haven't been able to spot any way of contacting him by mail. My partner and I have some communication abilities in a few languages but German isn't one of them. We might try to phone him on spec anyway, to determine his availability and likely price, plus whether he would know how to get to the birding area. Could be interesting but I think we'll be too lazy to fancy an 8 km round trip "before" we start.

 

[ychri]

I could call him and ask him all your questions if you want.
there are two hides where bustards frequently are seen. i think he should know them and if not it is easy to describe the locations to him.

https://maps.google.de/maps/ms?msid...0&ll=52.569621,12.57308&spn=0.028171,0.077162

of course it is not sure to see bustards from this hides, especially in winter and in dependence of weather conditions. best time is spring. i have been successful there in summer and early autumn and the northern hide is also a good spot for montagu's harrier and other raptors. in my opinion the southern hide isn't that interesting.
i have read that the bustards in winter feed in smaller groups on rape, spread on the surroundig fields. the guide (some kind of where-to-watch-birds-in-eastern-germany) suggests to contact the local experts before to get actual informations (http://grosstrappe.de/). they have been visited by some members of http://greatbustard.org/ in january, so i think, somebody will speak or understand english ;-)
email: [email protected]

best regards, ¥

 

[pandachris]

Hi Yvonne. Thanks for your kind offer. I'll send you a pm.

 

[pandachris]

We're hoping to try the trip out to Nennhausen today.

We went to Potsdam mainly for sight-seeing yesterday, turned the wrong way out of the railway station and walked up Telegraphenberg where we found one Middle-spotted Woodpecker. A quick Google shows that they have been seen here before during 2012.

 

[pandachris]

Pretty good day yesterday. We think we saw some bustards in flight but they we distant. We haven't come up with a viable alternative. Several Great White Egrets, two species of geese, surprising numbers of Roe Deer and at least six raptor species (Common Buzzard, Rough-legged Buzzard, Hen Harrier, Goshawk, Kestrel, probable White-tailed Eagle and possible Merlin) kept us entertained until a vicious squall that brought numerous tree branches down arrived, just before our return taxi.

Thanks to Yvonne for helping us to get it organised.

 

[pandachris]

Another good couple of hours yesterday, with a return to Schloss Charlottenburg before our flight home. Probably no big deal for local birders but most visitors from the UK would have been impressed.

We had our best ever views of Goshawk with both the male and female being visible almost constantly for the best part of fifteen minutes just after 11 a.m., down to about 5 metres overhead at times and often flying over the palace itself. I'll post a pic or two soon - the light was poor with lots of rain about but I think we got a couple in which the birds are recognisable.

Also present were Hawfinches in the same area as last year, although they were harder to find and there seemed to be fewer of them. As in 2012 we saw them from the area around the white statue amongst the ornamental hedges just in front of the west wing of the palace. Red Squirrels here again too. We thought we heard a Middle-spotted Woodpecker once, from the same spot. the call came from the less manicured area further west and perhaps north. I would have like to have heard it again. A GSW called repeatedly and quickly a few minutes later from nearby and didn't sound much like the first call, which seemed, to my ear, closer to the noise a Nuthatch makes - of which there were many in the area.

 

[pandachris]

Charlottenburg Goshawk

Probably the best of our pics. Given that it was taken in gloomy light in between rain showers it is probably the best we could have expected.

 

[Birdman7]

Goshawk

Not a bad silhouette flight shot. Did you shoot RAW? There seems to be enough detail on the shadows to try and recover them

 

[pandachris]

For the sake of continuity and completeness and for any birders in Berlin who are not lucky enough to see Hawfinches frequently, we paid our now traditional visit to Schloss Charlottenburg yesterday where they were numerous - I'd say 50+. They were concentrated in the tall trees in the area where we've seen them in both 2012 and 2013, to the left of the palace as you are looking into the grounds in the area where there are ornamental hedges and a white (marble?) neo-classical statue. The best area seemed to be the edge of the hedges away from the palace. It was in this area where we got prolonged views of Middle-spotted Woodpecker, too. Sadly no sign of the Goshawks this year.

Further away there was a large (300+) mixed flock of small finches - mainly Redpolls supplemented by Siskins and Goldfinches. There were drinking from a group of muddy puddles in what I think is the northwest section of the park, not far from the children's play area. We tried to find an Arctic Redpoll in amongst them but without success.

The Cafe am Belvedere over the railway bridge are doing splendid pelmeni if you fancy a snack after your walk there.

Plenty of Hawfinches at Potsdam's San Souci park as well, along with another MS Woodpecker and numerous Mandarins. We took the trip to Muggelsee, trying the woods east of Friedrichshagen on the edge of the lake where there were lots of birds of common species. Not much on the lake, though. I don't know whether there is better access to the water on the other side but public transport to Friedrichshagen from Berlin centre was easy. Nice area.

 

[pandachris]

Not the scarcest species in the grounds of Schloss Chalottenburg last week but one of the most spectacular ...