Since I finished the work for my Master’s thesis on Hawai´i and defended it in Gothenburg in June (by the way, got an MSc. now, woohoo), I returned to Germany, worked for the summer and started a 6-month research project on zinc in the ocean. I still have a longer blog article in the making to summarize my year on Hawai´i but for now, here’s a quick one about some birds at the North Sea.
I grew up near Rendsburg in the North of Germany, so I’ve always felt at home at the North Sea and it’s one of my favorite areas for birdwatching and photography in the spring and fall. And for about ten years already, I’ve been working as a guide for a beginner’s ornithology course that is taking place twice a year (spring and fall) for a week in Klappholttal on the island of Sylt.
Sunrise over the Wadden Sea at low tide.
But what’s so special about the North Sea? It’s the Wadden Sea - the largest intertidal mud flats in the world (I think). Here, twice a day during low tide, vast areas along the coast fall dry and reveal muds full of worms and other critters for birds to eat. Particularly the arctic waders love coming to the Wadden Sea on the migration between their breeding grounds in Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia and their wintering grounds in the Mediterranean and Africa. Here, they can gather food and accumulate fat reserves for the big flight. But since every time after just a few hours, the tide returns, they have to find areas of higher elevation to rest during high tides. It is truly impressive to go to these high tide resting areas and observe the tens to sometimes hundreds of thousands of dunlins, red knots, bar-tailed godwits and curlews as well as of course the less common waders joining them.
Additionally to the resting waders, many songbirds migrate along the coastline with impressive numbers of thrushes and finches and of course every now and then some rare bird that got lost on its migration. Particularly on the island of Helgoland, these can often be found as it is quite far out at Sea with a lighthouse that attracts the birds at night and large numbers of birdwatchers that spot every single bird on the island.
I particularly love to see the birds that I observed in their breeding area on Varanger peninsula in Northern Norway (see my blog entry here: https://www.nicofroehberg.com/blog/arctic-summer) like snow buntings, horned larks, lapland buntings and dunlins here on their way to the warm South for winter. A fascinating phenomenon to observe is also the change between summer and winter plumage. Most of these birds show much more colorful and contrasty colors in spring and summer to impress their partners while in winter they try to be as camouflaged as possible to escape potential predators. While during spring migration, a lot of the birds are already changing into the summer plumage, now in fall most of them show largely different shades of grey and brown. And yet they can still be absolutely beautiful!
Three weeks ago, I was taking part in the birdwatching course on Sylt again. While this time, I didn’t spot a lot of rarities, I was able to show my participants some of the more common migratory birds very well to learn about their typical behaviors and how to spot the differences between the species. The large numbers of migratory birds at the North Sea shore allow to really get down for example the differences of red knot vs. dunlin, common vs. spotted redshank or meadow vs. rock pipit. This year, some of the highlights were a firecrest among the thousands of goldcrests and some horned larks that showed extremely well and let me take some beautiful pictures.
This weekend, a good friend of mine spontaneously invited me to come along for a prolonged weekend of birdwatching on Helgoland and - especially because I hadn’t been there for 2.5 years - I of course did come along. I was particularly keen to see the little auk, that had been stationary at Düne (the sandy little island next to the main island of Helgoland) for some days. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and neither did I see the yellow-browed warbler or the siberian chiffchaff that some of the many other birders there saw. But nonetheless, I saw some nice birds and got some great photos. It started with a lapland bunting showing very well at the beach on the first afternoon and again on the last day up at the cliff. Another personal highlight for me were the bold snow buntings on Düne. Snow buntings are relatively rare but regular winter guests from the North at the coast and I’ve seen them many times before but never managed to get photos I was happy with. I really love these little birds, so I was very happy to finally get some good shots of them here. They were very daring, looking for food among the people at the beach and with some patience and after a while finally some sunlight, I was able to get really close and take photos until a sparrowhawk attempted to make them his lunch (unsuccessfully).
Another favorite of mine are the sanderlings - another visiting species from the North. They are always close to the breakwater, running along with the waves coming and going. And they stay out on the beach even in the most horrible weather. If worst comes to worst, they get together as a group and find shelter in a tire track or something similar. But most of the time you’ll still see them running around and looking for food in the sand and among the flotsam.
Sanderling in in the wind on Helgoland Düne.
All these birds cover incredible distances on their migration. Thousands of kilometers back and forth year after year. Many of them fly large parts of it nonstop only stopping to accumulate fat - often doubling their body mass in a short time - in the Wadden Sea before completing the rest of their journey. To me, this is a truly impressive phenomenon and I love observing and photographing these amazing creatures!
And finally: This year I put together a 2020 calendar again. The first batch sold out 3 weeks ago, but I just got a new batch and I’m really happy with how it turned out! It’s available in A4 (30x20 cm) for 15 € and A3 (30x45 cm) for 20€ plus shipping (that’s 3,79€ for A4 and 4,39€ for A3 to Germany, but I can ship anywhere, just send me a request for a quote on shipping costs). If you would like to have one or more calendars as a holiday present or for for yourself, contact me here: https://www.nicofroehberg.com/2020-calendar
2020 Calendar