May 9, 2006
Chuffed
We just had our second successive holiday weekend in France, so I headed over to Switzerland to visit Andrew. We decided to take the train to Lucerne, and another mountain train to the top of Mount Pilatus. This was ostensibly a 'non-birding trip' - fortunately no optics were required for the avian stars of the show - these well-fed Alpine Choughs (Chocard a bec jaune)!
We nicked some bread from the canteen for some truly eye-popping views of the species, only the second time I've ever seen them.
When choughs attack...
This one seemed exceedingly curious about my camera.
Frankly, it was just as well the Alpine Choughs performed for us, as the mountain weather led to less-than impressive views on the cable car down...
Fortunately things were better at lower elevations, where I encountered my first Ring Ouzels (Merle a plastron) in years. If only I'd bought my scope!
Back in Zurich, birds around the lake included Common Terns (Sterne pierregarin), Black Kites (Milan noir), Alpine Swifts (Martinet a ventre blanc), and many Red-crested Pochards (Nette rousse) - I assume this is a ferally breeding population.
A soaring White Stork (Cigogne blanche) over Basel city centre rounded off the weekend nicely.
Posted by rjhall at May 9, 2006 3:15 PMChuffed indeed! Well done!
The Red-crested Pochards are not considered to be feral in Switzerland. Large numbers move in from further east and the Lakes of Geneva and Neuchatel have very large wintering populations. Some breeding takes place as well.
By the way Lesser-spotted Eagle bred last year not too far from where you saw that bird recently.
Mike (in Geneva)
Posted by: Mike at May 31, 2006 6:59 AM