Eurasian Nightjar on the North Sea beach near St. Peter-Böhl

in the middle of broad daylight at the beginning of June, a dark brown something flies over the water in the glistening sunlight. It then lands in the middle of a sandy beach near St. Peter-Böhl on the german North Sea coast 100 km north-west of Hamburg. The surprise is great: it is a Eurasian… Continue reading Eurasian Nightjar on the North Sea beach near St. Peter-Böhl

Photographing European Bee-eater: How and Where

A thin branch in the most beautiful evening light and on it a European Bee-eater (Merops apiaster). This is an image many nature photographers want to shoot. This raises the question of course of what the Bee-eater’s habits and preferences are. If you take a closer look at Bee-eater photography, you ask yourself e.g. how… Continue reading Photographing European Bee-eater: How and Where

Common Whitethroat at Brenu Beach Grasslands near Cape Coast

After a long journey from Ankasa, we – a Birdquest-Group – stranded for an afternoon birding at Brenu Beach Grasslands near Cape Coast / Ghana. We had just seen a male Marsh Tchagra (Tchagra minuta) a bird in a spiny bush reminded me of an old friend from Germany. It looked like a Common Whitethroat… Continue reading Common Whitethroat at Brenu Beach Grasslands near Cape Coast

Mountain Robin-Chat on red ants road at Mount Cameroon

During the night, a heavy thunderstorm had fallen with heavy downpours over Douala and the southwestern province. Now in the early morning a few birds are on the hiking trail. In an open site, some specialists have found themselves plundering an ant-train. Unlike in South America, these birds actually seem to eat the ants themselves.… Continue reading Mountain Robin-Chat on red ants road at Mount Cameroon

Congo Serpent-Eagle (Dryotriorchis spectabilis) in the Cameroon lowlands

Driving from Edea down to Kribi in April 2017 we managed to catch a bird, unobtrusively crouching on a branch of a medium-sized tree right along the road. The bird had large eyes, but was sitting right in the open. Wow, this was the Congo Serpent-Eagle (Dryotriorchis spectabilis) is a medium-sized eagle that occurs in… Continue reading Congo Serpent-Eagle (Dryotriorchis spectabilis) in the Cameroon lowlands

Tree Pipit: back from Africa

A remembrance of a song, beautiful and both familiar and strange. It took a while until I got the clue. It was a Tree Pipit (Anthus trivialis) singing in a woodland in the heath on sunday. Singing now south of Berlin, seen 20 days ago in Cameroon. There the subspecies trivialis was still fairly common… Continue reading Tree Pipit: back from Africa