14 White Storks

Two days ago, when I opened my window, I saw a group of big birds rise into the sky. I immediatly grabbed my bins, that stand always just by the window I identified them to be 14 White Storks. I haven't seen any Stork from my yard yet, so this was really exciting!
I then grabbed my camera, turned it on and focused on the Storks. In the approximately 5-7 seconds I needed for this the storks were already disappearing behind some trees and I only got 2 shots, of which one is above.

The sky was really nice at that moment and so i decided to photograph this instead. Some 3 minutes later a thunder storm began. I guess the storks were resting on a horse ranch nearby, some 700m away from my house. They felt the thunderstorm was coming and so they took flight...

New Website

This post concerns especially all german readers, or those who understand the language:
I have made a new website, where I describe the places where I bird, the birds I see and I have uploaded a lot of pics.
The site is not done by now, and maybe I find a possibility that also you other nation people can read it...

Dieser Post betrifft vor allem alle Deutschen und die, die deutsch verstehen. Ich habe eine neue Website aufgebaut, auf der ich meine Gebiete und Beobachtungen beschreibe und auf die ich ganz viele Fotos hochgeladen habe.

Viel Spaß beim Angucken

Pectoral Sandpiper

When I saw in the Internet that a Pectoral Sandpiper had been seen in the Wedeler Marsch I just had to go and look, if it was still there. This was 4 days after it had been seen first and two days before it had been refound, so I had a bit of hope. Luckily there were some other birders with 2 scopes, through which we could can the groups of Northern Lapwings and then we found it, my 4th rarity this year. It was quite far away and the light very poor, and so are my pictures but through the scope we could see all the important details...

Pics from Spain

200. year bird!!!

Before I load up the pics from Madrid I want to report that I got my 200. year bird yesterday, which is also my 700. lifer: European Honey-Buzzard.
I got to see at least one, but probably even two. The first one was very shy and always flew to another branch out of sight when I'd point my camera at it. I followed it but got no better shot than this:

Then maybe half an hour later I saw a bird of prey flying over. Through my binoculars I identified it to be another (or maybe the same?) Honey-Buzzard. So this time I got my chance to get some decent shots. But when I looked at this picture it looked rather like a Common Buzzard, than a Honey-Buzzard to me.

I uploaded this picture to a bulletin board where the idea of a very early Rough-legged Buzzard came up.
But this picture supported my first idea of Honey-Buzzard:

It seems now quite sure, that this is a Honey-Buzzard...
Other interesting birds this day were 3 Red-backed Shrikes, 3 Stonechats, 5 White Storks, 2 Red Kites and 4 Cranes.