After several years of family holidays in the sun without much bird watching interest (hoopoes and azure-winged magpies in the Algarve being the exception), I took advantage of a cheap RyanAir flight to spend a few days walking in Southern Germany early this July, just to see what I would see.
After some research, I decided to concentrate on an area called the “Leininger Land”, part of a large mixed forest area south west of Mainz known as the Pfalz. It was also handy for the villages of the “Deutsche Weinstrasse” (German Wine Road), following a channel between the forest and the Rhine valley, which I thought would provide suitable refreshment for the evenings. It’s not an area that is particularly well visited in summer, even by Germans, who tend to head for the Black Forest or the Bavarian Forest. Autumn is likely to be busier, as that’s when the wine festivals all happen.
One or two tips about walking in Germany ensue. Firstly, Germans like their walks long. They walk almost as energetically as they jog and aim to cover a lot of ground. Most walks mentioned in the handbooks are easily a day’s worth if you are taking time to stop and observe. Distances are not always clear on arrival at a location, although most will offer several alternatives to the route you first identified. Bearing mind that summer temperatures in the Pfalz are frequently between 25 and 35 C, it’s absolutely vital to set out with a good supply of water (and ideally some toilet paper). On the first day, I made the mistake of thinking I could pick up some water from nearby villages on the way, but none of them had a village shop and most bars and cafes seemed to be firmly closed.
Also, little effort has been made to encourage wildlife observation. There are no signs to explain what you are likely to see and the only buildings resembling hides are the forest fire observation posts. It is important to note that walks are not signposted as they tend to be here. Instead you need to look out for painted marks on tree trunks to indicate which path you need to take. These and the route descriptions in guidebooks I found not entirely reliable and there were times when I was glad I had a detailed map.
Having said that the walking was excellent, real back to nature stuff. I hardly encountered a soul until later in the week and there was virtually no litter. The level of sheer peace reminded me of the walks I do at home in Scotland, although obviously the scenery and climate were different. I was at my leisure to amble slowly and investigate any interesting traces of bird or other wildlife.
Still unsure quite what I was expecting to see in the way of birds, I started out with the “Three Castles' Walk” from the elevated village of Battenberg, but cutting out a large part of it as it is approaching 15 miles long! What I soon found was that it was an excellent way of seeing birds that can be found at home in Scotland, but only with some difficulty.
I wasn’t even out of the village before I got an excellent view of a couple of black redstarts chattering argumentatively on the edge of a vine field. It was a nice day. Accompanied by little brown and blue butterflies, I made my way up the forest path surrounded by oaks and began to think of the wood warblers and redstarts I have yet to see in my local woods.
In the event I never saw either of them, but it was a delight to see nuthatches climbing the trees in numbers as well many greater spotted woodpeckers and jays. I had seen a nuthatch at Threave Gardens many years ago, but it was a complete fluke and well before nuthatches were regularly seen in the area.
On reaching the coniferous zone, the sighting that first surprised me most was the crested tit, but sure enough my German bird book confirms that it is fairly common. I suppose I had imagined that, if I did ever see one it would be on a snowy day in some far-off northern landscape. As I walked on through the glades, I realised it might be because this forest doesn’t just consist of serried rows of sitka spruce. There is a lot of Douglas Fir and enough space between trees to allow the sun to reach the forest floor, where the dung beetles, ants and butterflies can play.
As I went along the tops, I could hear the wood warbler’s melancholy call, but I never did get to see it. The trees here grow to immense heights of sixty to eighty feet high and you’d need to be far more of an expert than me to pick out an individual bird in the foliage at that sort of distance. I also saw fleetingly, but failed to identify another large grey warbler with a strong eye stripe and wing bar. It would feed on the insects on the forest floor but was quick to seek cover in the pines when approached.
Identifying birds has anyway to be approached with far more caution in Germany, because there are just so many more variants and sub-species. My German bird book details six different variations of spotted woodpecker and a lot of different forms of the chiffchaff, whose German name Zilpzalp I think actually gives a more accurate indication of its song. When it comes to warblers, they are so many in number and variation and it would be foolish to guess.
Anyway, at that point the weather started to break. By the time I got much past the village of Alt-Leiningen, it became a real downpour and I was fortunate to be walking through fairly thick woodland through the valley that leads to the foot of Battenberg hill.
The break in the weather made it much cooler the next day and my walk in the Eismoog area, was relatively uneventful in wildlife terms, apart from some more distant wood warbler calls and a red squirrel who perched on top of a wood pile only three metres away – but declined to engage in conversation while I got the camera out! Still the scenery was beautiful and I did see a rough-legged buzzard, desperately trying to find a warm upcurrent as it circled over a clearing. Strangely, I only sighted four birds of prey during the whole trip.
My last main walk was an abbreviated version of the “Leininger Wanderweg”, another potential marathon starting out from the village of Honingen. Almost immediately, I briefly saw another thrush-sized bird that I have not been able to identify. It had pied head stripes and hung upside down in a bush just like an enormous tit but nothing in the books looks anything like it. Maybe it was a juvenile.
In mixed weather, the main sighting of the day was not to come from the world of birds. I was quietly in investigating a little red-chested, chat-like bird in some low trees when a distinct oinking sound emerged from the bushes and ferns around me. I turned to catch sight of what appeared to be a large black pig with a turned-up nose. It was a female wild boar and she wasn’t hanging around. She snorted her way indignantly up the hill at double time, leaving her eight to ten baby boar to find their own way, which they did in some confusion. Tyoically, they also just managed to get out of sight by the time I got the camera to work! Boar used to be found in the UK but were long since hunted to extinction, so obviously I was delighted to catch sight of one – and that it didn’t charge me. A cyclist I met later in the day told me that, although boar are quite common in the Pfalz, they rarely show themselves in daylight hours.
After several more minutes'observation, I reckoned I finally identified the bird as a “Zwergschnapper” – a red-breasted flycatcher, and another first sighting for me! I’ve often thought that the fascinating thing about nature walks is that you can walk for hours and see nothing, then several things happen in a short space of time.
After passing through the village of Hertlingshausen and following the trail back along the valley, I was equally pleased to see my first ever marsh tits. I was surprised how confident they were. One sat in a tree a couple of metres away while I perused, while another kept landing on the forest path a few metres away, almost as if expecting crumbs.
As well as the triumphs there are the frustrations. On my way back through the forest, I was again hearing consistent warbling sounds from the treetops and spent much futile time trying to see the bird that was producing them.
I had by the end of the day, however, caught my first glimpse of a possible tree pipit. Although the “Leininger Wanderweg” had consisted largely of uninspiring forestry paths, it had certainly produced some interesting sightings.
Here are a couple of further non-bird sightings:
 |  |
I think I can recommend a trip to Southern Germany for the casual birdwatcher. Probably there are many delights for the twitcher too but it seems to me that, unless you are fairly experienced, you will see new birds and other interesting sights more or less as a matter of course. Even on a last brief trip to Battenberg to catch up on some lost photos when the weather failed, I was still seeing new things – on this occasion a serin singing from somebody’s television aerial and confirmation that hornets really are four times bigger than wasps!
It was also pleasantly surprising to notice how affordable Germany has come since the euro took over. I paid no more than €30 for bed and breakfast, €15 for an evening meal except on the last night. And at €2.00 a glass in the pub or €2.50 - €3.00 a litre bottle, you really should try the Riesling!
No comments:
Post a Comment