teutonic nights and days

A brief visit to Hamburg to see my mum gave me the chance to do some birding for the second time in my home country and for the first time in winter and should therefore have offered me some continental winter delights. Unfortunately, the weather didn't play along and the birds I saw on my journey to Birmingham Airport were almost better than everything I saw in Germany. But that was ok because it was supposed to be a family holiday and not a birding holiday.
Nonetheless, here is a quick account of my days in flat northern Germany. As I left on Sunday, 7 waxwing sat in a tree in Mach wishing me a farewell and from the train just after Caersws I had two groups of whooper swans (a total of 15), goosander on the river and a couple of sparrowhawk later on. The first day in Hamburg we had a shopping day in the city centre but also took the chance to have a wonder around the Botanical Gardens ("Planten un Blomen" for our Low German speakers). Highlights were a common gull, a flock of siskin feeding high up in an alder tree and a great spotted woodpecker.

On the second day we decided to go to a family and childhood favorite, the Duvenstedter Brook Nature Reserve; a 785 ha area comprising of wetlands, bogs, marshy grassland and wet woodland that is famous for its breeding cranes but which unfortunately tend to leave at the end of Nov / beginning of Dec. It rained heavily all day and notable birds were only numerous flocks of goldcrest, a hunting ringtail hen harrier and two sparrowhawk, the second of which came very close when (unsuccessfully) chasing after a marsh tit.
Then on Wednesday we ventured further afield to a lake near Kiel which is supposed to be good for overwintering wildfowl. But as it had been very cold recently in Germany, the big lake was still mostly frozen over with some wildfowl gathering in the open pools. Nonetheless, as it was a dry (but dull) day we decided to do the 5.5 hour trek around it. In the beginning one of the very pale buzzards (same bird on photo) that are found particularly in Northern Germany caught me out and it took me ages to figure out what it is.

About half way around we encountered a great white egret feeding with grey herons and towards the end some fairly tame goldeneye gave a photo opportunity at last, whilst the "pshh, pshh, pshh" sound of the willow tit accompanied us all the way around.

Whilst I was away Dave had an intriguing encounter with a male sparrowhawk which grabbed a stunned blue tit that had flown into the window of the patio and then munched it away in the ash tree. And today I had the delight to finally see a treecreeper from the kitchen window making up his way on his usual tree.