Holiday am Bodensee

I cycled round Lake Constanz last week, starting and finishing in Bregenz. This wasn't exclusively a nature trip but I was keeping my eyes open as usual for interesting sightings.

On the first day, I took a detour around a part of the Rhine Delta, which quickly demonstrated that the main duck to be seen was the great crested grebe. There was also some sort of long-tailed pipit that didn't hang around, a theme that was to be repeated several times during the week.  Checking in the books it looked like a paddyfield warbler (Feldrohrensanger) but the location was wrong. Out on the lagoon there were a few reed warblers (probable) on the move

In a way the most interesting discovery was a good look at some long-tailed tits that got quite close when I stopped.  At first I thought they were juveniles, but research made it clear that they are a good deal paler than the UK variety and have almost totally white heads.  Of course, a couple of wagtails I

White Stork

saw were of the white rather than pied variety.

Moving on from the delta to the farmland on the edge of the nature reserve, there were a couple of white storks.  I saw storks in Bavaria seven years ago but this time I got a much better photograph.  I also noticed a nuthatch near Arbon that was tapping on a tree trunk as it fed, almost like a wee woodpecker.

Stopping to watch a guy fish (using maggots under an enormous float) there was a single common blue butterfly.  This was to be a rare occurrence.  The weather most days was overcast and the total butterfly sightings throughout the holiday amounted to three common blues (one female), a couple of red admiral, a few assorted whites and one brown, probably an argos (Mohrenfalter) of some kind.

The second day of the trip from Arbon to Gaienhofen was an almost total washout from a nature point of view as the weather was appalling and I spent most of the day cycling into a storming gale with a German couple.

Maine Coon

Before the weather worsened I was slightly amused to be sitting behind a maine coon that appeared to be looking out to sea near the harbour at Romanshorn.  I decided to photograph it when all of a sudden it atrted making for the harbour itself - the reason being that a fishing boat was coming in.

Fragmentary sightings were a kestrel, a red kite and a panicky treecreeper.  There was also a very dark squirrel that I thouight might be a black squirrel, but they don't occur in Germany so it must have been a 'maroon' red squirrel.