Alpine Birding Spots 1 - Inzinger Gaisau

Lots of people that come to the Alpine Birds blog from google are - quite obviously - looking for info on Alpine Birds. And I love to talk about the places I love going birding. So I would like to try get a new blog series going about great birding spots in the Alps - well, at the the places that I like to go looking for birds, or just to appreciate nature. Here is the first one in the series:

Inzinger Gaisau

Wintertime in the Gaisau, view from the the little wooden bridge.

Inzing is a small, quaint village just 15km west of Innsbruck. If you go to the western edge of town and head down toward the Inn, there is a little dirt track (see google map below) that will lead you down to the Inzinger Gaisau - a series of ponds, riparian woodland, reedbeds, open meadows and great views up to the mountains.

This combination of various habitats makes for a surprisingly diverse bird assemblage and the Inzinger Gaisau really stands out as one of those places where you never know quite what is going to turn up.

Black Kites have recently started breeding in the Inzing/Petnau area

Riparian woodland - the broadleaved woodland along the River Inn, and in the Gaisau itself is great for small warblers, particularly in spring and early summer. Keep a look out for Icterine Warbler (Gelbspötter), Chifchaf (Zilzalp), Willow Warbler (Fitis), Wood Warbler (Waldlaubsänger), and Blackcap (Mönchsgrasmücke). Keep an ear open for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Kleinspecht) and both Short-toed Treecreeper (Gartenbaumläufer) and Eurasian Treecreeper (Waldbaumläufer) breed here - listen out for their Kingfisher-like calls, but dont be too surprised if it is a Kingfisher (Eisvogel) that is flying past.

Fieldfares are very common in spring, breeding in the woodlands and feeding in the open meadows

Fairly large numbers of Fieldfare (Wacholderdrossel) breed in the riparian woodland, but they are mostly seen foraging in the open fields (recently ploughed or short meadows). This woodland edge is also great for the tits: Marsh Tit (Sumpfmeise), Great Tit (Kohlmeise), Coal Tit (Tannenmeise), Longtailed Tit (Schwanzmeise) and the gorgeous little Blue Tit (Blaumeise). The tits are probably best found near the fishermen's hut on the southern side of the main pond where the habitat diversity is high.

If you go over the little wooden bridge at the eastern side of the pond, you can skirt around the northern waters edge with great views over the meadows and fields to your right, and the reedbeds and open water to your left. In the meadows, keep a look out for the local Whinchats (Braunkehlchen), and if you are lucky, you can pick up a Eurasian Hoopoe (Wiedehopf) or a Black Kite (Schwarzmilan), both of which have started breeding in the immediate area in the last couple of years.

Tufted Ducks now breed regularly on the pond

On the pond itself, there are mostly just Mallards (Stockente) and Coots (Blässhuhn). Last year the Tufted Duck (Reiherente) and Teal (Krikente) bred successfully. Up until recently, the Little Grebe (Zwergtaucher) also bred here. At migration time, keep a look out for Goosander/Common Merganser (Gänsesäger), Garganey (Knäckente), Pochard (Tafelente), Shoveler (Löffelente), and Wigeon (Pfeifente).

With a huge pot of luck, you might see a Great Cormornat (Kormoran), but it seems the local government supports the shooting of them so they are very rare here. If you do find one, you are likely to find them very very shy, especially if you have a tripod with you.

About midway up the pond on the northern side, there is a open patch of flooded grassland/reedbed (only in spring and summer, for it is cut in autumn). If you are there in the late afternoon, keep an ear open for Moorhen (Teichhuhn) and Water Rail (Wasserralle) - recently I have heard both Moorhen and Water Rail from this reed patch, and from the main reedbed at the top (western) end of the main pond.

Reed Bunting, a summer breeding visitor

The main reedbed area at the top of the pond (western side) is also a good spot for Marsh Warbler (Sumpfrohrsänger), the summer-abundant Reed Bunting (Rohrammer), and the shy Teal (Krickente). At migration time, keep a look out for Green Sandpiper (Waldwasserläufer), Common Snipe (Bekassine), and an ear open for European Reed Warbler (Teichrohrsänger).

Green Sandpiper, a unusual but fairly regular passage migrant

Heading further west around the woodland patch, there is a little path that leads up and over the railway line. It is illegal in Austria to cross railway lines so please do not do it - it is dangerous. On the other side of the railway line is another reed bed patch, and open fields where large flocks of migrating Yellow Wagtail (Schafstelze) and Skylark (Feldlrche) gather in Autumn, and Redfooted Falcons (Rotfussfalk) are often seen on passage in early spring.

Cockchafer (Maikäfer) are very common in May, aka Redfooted Falcon food

Wintertime is rather quite for birds in the Inzinger Gaisau, but one can pick up large flocks of Goldfinch (Stieglitz) and Siskin (Erlenzeisig), particularly in early winter. The Bramblings (Bergfink) move through on mass in late winter.

Best time to go: Spring and Autumn Migration

Interesting species: Icterine Warbler (migr), Black Kite (br), Reed Bunting (br), Teal (br), Water Rail (br), Goosander (?)

How to get there: go to the google map, click on the P(arking) symbol and say "to here". type in your starting location and google maps will do it all for you. The Inzinger Gaisau is approximately 20 minutes from Innsbruck.

View Inzinger Gaisau in a larger map

Happy birding,

Dale Forbes

Redfooted Falcons, Stonechats and others...

On Saturday afternoon I really needed to get out of the house - just too many days wedged in behind my laptop!

So I took the bicycle out to Telfs and cycled along the track back through the fields home (about 15km). The wind was really really blowing in my face, so it made for some great exercise.

But besides that, I picked up some nice birds along the way:

This great juv Red-footed Falcon was taken by my Flickr friend Sergey Yeliseev - check out his photostream, pay him a compliment ;-).

My first Redfooted Falcon of the year in Tirol (a single juvenile in Oberhofen)

A Black Kite (almost certainly another individual to the pair breeding in Pettnau), also in Oberhofen.

And a wonderful surprise in picking up a singing male Stonechat in Flaurling.

What a wonderfully rewarding cycle home!

Happy birding
Dale Forbes

Digiscoping; a bit of a personal reflection

Coming from a background of SLR cameras and telephoto lenses, I have found digiscoping rather challenging. It is not always easy to find a bird quickly, and then getting good focus is also not easy. Because one is using such large magnifications (at least 20x), one also needs good light to get a fast enough shutter speed so that the bird looks sharp - and not just a blurred blob in the centre of the image - as much of my early digiscoping results resembled.

Time and practice has meant that I am a little faster at finding subjects accurately through my scope, and getting good focus. But I have also learnt a whole lot more about choosing my subject and positioning myself to get the best possible light. And I have also learnt to take my digiscoping equipment wherever I go so that I have the maximum chance of bumping in to something fortuitously.

And when the light is not good, I just look through the scope at the pretty birdy.
Well, I do have a scope with me anyway ;-)

My regular digiscoping setup includes a swarovski 80mm angled scope, either a 30x wide angle ocular or a zoom, and my point and shoot Canon A590IS. I must admit that I am not completely satisfied with the Canon A590IS. I continue to struggle to get really sharp images even without the a huge big telescope strapped to the front of the camera. The weak lens (or whatever the issue is) is particularly evident when you use the zoom. I learnt the hard way; when digiscoping or digibinning, don't use the zoom on this camera, it is just not worth it.

Digiscoping birds in flight has been particularly challenging. Using an angled telescope has the added challenge of not having the viewing and photographing angles the same, that added to the fact that compact digital cameras have rather slow shutter response and repeat times, and losing the subject bird from the screen once a photo is taken, even for a split second - enough to lose a flying bird from view.

One method I found for photographing birds in flight was to maximise shutter speed by using the largest aperture available (smallest number), focus on an area through which the birds frequently fly (a flight path) and blast the shutter off whenever the birds are anywhere near. If you try enough times, you are bound to end up with something eventually.

For the Black Kite series, I was using a different setup that made following and photographing flying birds a whole lot easier...


I was using a Canon EOS 350D attached directly to a Swarovski 80HD straight telescope using Swarovski's TLS800 digiscoping adaptor. I still had to focus by hand, but it felt a whole lot more like a telephoto lens in the hand than anything else I have used for digiscoping. Because of the large focal length, it can be difficult to get enough light, so I tend to pump the ISO up a little bit to get a better shutter speed. With a shutter speed of 1/200sec I am usually confident enough to swing the setup about hand-held and see what I can get. Makes for lots of fun.

The thing I am still struggling with is getting good focus as the focus is entirely manual, putting a lot of pressure on the photographer. But it is getting better, the more I use it. I don't think I will switch over to this digiscoping method - as I still prefer the ability to get the camera out of the way and use the spotting scope for viewing - but it is nice to play with, and I am sure that those who are less focused on bird viewing love it.

here are a couple more black kite photos that I digiscoped yesterday. they are not great, but I kinda like them. And, I have a real thing for the Milvus kites, so please excuse my harping on...






Happy birding
Dale Forbes

The Black Kites are feeling all frisky...

I went out to the Inzinger Gaisau this afternoon to see what was about (and to enjoy the lovely warm spring day). Packed the digiscoping toys in the backpack and headed out there on the bicycle.

After hanging out for a little bit at a side pond (finding a little grass snake and a rather shy moorhen), we went for a walk further back to the westernmost edge of the marshland area. It was the beautiful call - a sound that reminds me of my childhood - that drew my attention to the pair of Black Kites (Schwarzmilan) the was circling and heading in to the flooded woodland. I managed to snap off a couple of okay digiscoping photos. Not great, but at least you can see they are black kites ;-)




I was trying to get the Black Kites with the snowy Alps in the background, but I could not find a way to effectively digiscope them without getting that annoying telephone line through the image. Does anyone have any idea how I can post-process the image?


Happy birding
Dale Forbes

The Black Kites are back!

Black Kite, originally uploaded by Sergey Yeliseev.

I saw my first Black Kite of the year this afternoon [here], a Black Kite doing what Black Kites do, scan the highways and country roads looking for roadkill. Well, that and probably also scouring the rapidly greening fields and pastures for spring beetles and other yummy edibles. I looked back at my older blog posts and it seems I saw my first Black Kite last year on almost exactly the same day - 8 April 2008.

It is good to see an old friend again.

The photo is from Sergey Yeliseev - I really like this guys's flickr photostream and hope to meet up with him some day...

I also heard my first Willow Warbler of the year, singing alongside a Short-toed Treecreeper - both in downtown Schwaz, Tirol.

Happy birding
Dale

A Black Kite!

Wow, sweet!

I went for a mtn bike ride this afternoon along the Inn and saw some pretty cool things wizzing by. (that is me trying to convince you that I ride fast - did it work? I didn't think so, I had trouble convincing myself as well).
I did, however, get some great views of a black kite that was scouring an open field near Mötz. I really loved always having the kites around when I was growing up and every year we would check the sky religiously at the beginning of August (did I remember the month correctly?) to see when we spotted the first kite. Invariably, they would be seen on the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast first, then around Durban, working their way up the N3 towards Johannesburg and then explode throughout the country. It was always rather dramatic and certainly very exciting.

So, seeing my first kite of the northern hemisphere season brought back lots of happy childhood memories. Now, I am not going to get all pop-psychology on you, but it was rather cool. I hope to see more. Soon. I must say, it is fascinating to see all these species that I knew from southern Africa migrating here, and seeing them here in their "other" home. It brings a whole new dimension to my birding life.

The Alpine Winter was, however, a rather dull time for birds. My bird list remained static for months and I was forced to amuse myself with other hobbies. (skiing and tobogganing are, luckily, more than a little fun, so I was not too depressed). But now, with the onset of spring (oh, if someone sees the manager in charge of the weather, would you please tell them to turn the snow machines off already!) we are seeing lots more birds about. and they are all singing. the blackbirds sing their beautiful Turdus lyrics and the crows are building nests. Oh, and if you have never seen a Gold Finch Carduelis carduelis (here they call it a Stieglitz) then do yourself a favour and find one! Their lovely little white-rimmed scarlet faces makes them looks like they got a little too excited about the whole lipstick thing and permanently ruined their porcelain white doll faces.

The sun is due to make a bit of an appearance this weekend so I plan to take the plung and dust off my swarovski's and hit the woodland. If you live in the Alps (or anywhere else for that matter) you should probably do the same because, honestly, what can be more rewarding than finding a pretty little finch to look at as it fluffs itself up for the ladies!