The Thaw

Great White Egret, photographed in Bulgaria in Feb 2010

Temperatures here in Munich have gone up to the dizzying heights of 3 or 4 degrees Celsius this week, and the snow is rapidly retreating.

A train journey at the weekend took me north up to the Danube (the Donau here) at Regensburg: already a big river, but a long way away from the great waterway we'll be staying on in the Delta in May! Still plenty of space on this trip, if anyone fancies it: there can't be a better opportunity to enjoy a small group trip to the Delta! And with all the snow in Austria and Germany this winter, it looks like there'll be plenty of water to spread around!

Meanwhile, a couple of nice surprises out of the train window.

First was a Great White Egret just outside Landshut, jerking along a culverted urban stream (and on the return journey, standing out in the middle of a damp field, contemplating the mole hills.), adding a touch of bright Japonisme to the snowy, grey landscape.

Further on, where a trackside stream moved through some woodland there were clear signs that the local European Beavers have woken up, with several felled trees damming the stream and bright, fresh chippings and knawings. No sign of the beasts themselves (but what chance of that from a moving train?), but exciting nonetheless: to see a European Beaver is one of my targets for my time in Munich, as they're pretty well distributed along the Donau and the Isar north of the city. The reintroduction of Beavers to Bavaria in the 1970s has been such a success that this is the source of further reintroduction projects across Europe, in Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Belgium and most recently to Knapdale in Scotland.

Isar in the snow: Munich, 16th Feb 2012

Still lots of deep snow around, but with temperatures creeping up towards zero, or even positive figures predicted tomorrow, and blue skies and bright sunshine, it's positively balmy in Munich at the moment! On the river, a handful of Goosander were looking very smart, fishing around Wittelsbacherbr�cke.

With Great Tits and Nuthatches still very noisy in the trees and the sun on your face, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that spring is just around the corner... despite all the snow and ice!

Sussex awash with Short-eared Owls

News from Mike Russell in Sussex:

"Down here in Sussex, as probably many other places in the south, we have been enjoying a short-eared owl invasion. Many people have been out and about and seeing these wonderful birds at very close quarters. A good thing about short-eared owls is that they fly in daylight, particularly from mid-afternoon onwards and the likelihood is that they could stay much of the winter, assuming this hard weather doesn't cause them too many problems.

We do get visited by short-eared owls most winters but varies considerably in numbers, sometimes they are very scarce. They breed in the northern uplands of Britain and tend to move south after breeding where finding their food, mainly voles and mice is a little easier. How many we get depends on how successful their breeding season has been and how much food is available. This year has been a bumper year for voles so their predators such as short-eared owls, barn owls and kestrels have all done well. Birds from the continent also cross the channel to take advantage of the plentiful food source that is around this year.

At the Sussex Wildlife Trust reserve at Waltham Brooks, just south of Amberley up to 6 at a time have been observed, sometimes 3 sparring together where their feeding territories overlap, spiralling up into the sky in a not particularly aggressive way. They even made the local news encouraging even more people to go and see them and the item can be seen on the Trust website."

Galapagos above the waves

and another noisy video, this time the best that my phone's video camera could come up with.

Includes Land Iguanas wrestling, Blue-footed Boobies foot-waving, Magnificent Frigatebirds drumming and a Waved Albatross's first ever flight.

Galapagos underwater

Those little �50 underwater cameras turned out to be pretty great!
(best watched with the volume turned down low... my first attempt at editing a video, and it's come out pretty noisy!)

Dry land stuff to follow...

Galapagos 2012

A gallery of photos from our Galapagos trip is now up on Flickr, with the trip report available to download from our website.

More to come here, in time... still fighting off the jetlag!

Galapagos Penguins, Bartholome

We saw penguins at Post Office Bay on Floreana, off Rabida and in Sullivan Bay, Santiago.

But, as usual, the longest and most exciting encounters were around Bartholome, where they entertained both out of the water and under it. Wonderful...

Galapagos 2012

More to follow, but for now here are some of the highlights from our trip so far...

from the top: Ghost Crabs on Cerro Brujo beach; Galapagos Flycatcher getting up close and personal at Sullivan Bay; Medium Tree Finch, found only in the highlands of Floreana; the lovely chocolate brown Marine Iguanas of San Cristobal; Giant Tortoise on Sta Cruz; Santa Fe Land Iguana; a fly past by Red-billed Tropicbirds on Plaza Sur; Kicker Rock