This
year's birding big day was a lot of fun since we are in Europe and I'm trying to learn the birds here. I don't have a handle on
European birdsongs yet so nearly all of these birds were ID'd by sight.
We were enroute by bicycle through the Baltics over the BBD weekend so this
list encompasses northwestern Latvia through much of Estonia. The
weather didn't cooperate with us (our most promising spot along the
route, a migratory bird area on the Latvian coast, was completely socked
in with fog when we passed through) but we still managed to see birds
here and there in other places.
As it happens, my bird guide is in German (a translation of Hayman and Hume's 2009 guide)! Luckily Markus knows all the birds by their German names anyway so we just used those and I actually don't know the English common names for a lot of these birds. We sent the list below with latin names - thanks to Bill Buskirk for adding English names to the list!
Feldlerche (Alauda arvensis) SkylarkAs it happens, my bird guide is in German (a translation of Hayman and Hume's 2009 guide)! Luckily Markus knows all the birds by their German names anyway so we just used those and I actually don't know the English common names for a lot of these birds. We sent the list below with latin names - thanks to Bill Buskirk for adding English names to the list!
Bachstelze (Motacilla alba) White or Pied Wagtail
Kiebitz (Vanellus vanellus) Northern Lapwing
Markus has been doing a lot of bird-related photography, though without a zoom lens we are limited in what we can capture. Here are a few from birding along our route (Big Day and otherwise) as well as from our continued work with Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation to document roadkill observations.
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| Haubentaucher (a grebe) we saw in Finland. We have seen these all over Europe, but didn't see one during Birding Big Day! |
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| Creative and impressive White Stork nest |
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| Roadkill Gruenfink (Greenfinch) we spotted this morning in central Finland |
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