Heligoland

On 13th October I went to Heligoland for my first time. I was very excited, because I had heard a lot of great things about Heligoland. It is the only offshore island belonging to Germany and lies on the migration route of many birds halfway between Denmark and the Netherlands. There are the only breeding grounds for many pelagic birds like Gannets or Auks in Germany and there are a lot of migrants and vagrants stopping on Heligoland. It probably possesses the biggest bird list in Germany, with many very rare vagrants like Siberian Rubythroat. It is like the best place in Germany to see vagrants or rare migrants and the month from September to November are the best to see them.
So I hoped go get a whole bunch of new lifers, the days before many interesting birds had already been seen.
So in the morning I started my trip in Hamburg, shipping on the Elbe river and then on the North Sea. During that ship passage I already began my list and saw some nice birds and many of them were long-awaited lifers!
I made my first contacts and met another birder I had already met once before: At the Pectoral Sandpiper!
When I finally arrived on Heligoland I had already 9 lifers. What a great start.
After bringing my things to the youth hostel I immediately began to bird and I almost never stopped with. I even had my camera and bins within reach during the meals.
I never slept very long and often was already outside before sunrise, searching for animals. Unfortunately I didn't have any walkie-talkie, so I never knew when an interesting bird showed up somewhere. Therefor I always kept asking the other birders I met if they had seen anything interesting or if anything had been said through the walkie-talkies. By this for example I learnt there was somewhere a Red-flanked Bluetail on the island, but only 2 people had seen it yet. They told me where and I informed other birders to join me and search for. Unluckily we didn't find it, but just the day after I left Heligoland it was refound and banded...
There were some birders I met regularly on my ways. Most birders were from Germany but there were also some from the US, the netherlands and switzerland, who I talked with. It was fun to talk to other birders from other countries, the last time I did that was in Ecuador...
When I finally had to leave I was quite sad and I know I will return as soon as possible.
After I had arrived back home I kept looking in the internet what was being seen on Heligoland and I was sooo disappointed about having missed some of the birds recorded just a few days later, including Great Northern Loon, Pallas's Leaf Warbler, Red-necked and Grey Phalarope, Sabine's Gull, Olive-backed Pipit, Siberian Stonechat and Desert Wheatear amongst other very cool birds. But I'm still quite satisfied with the 98 species i saw of which 27 were lifers.