My first Little Ringed Plover
I finally managed to see a Little Ringed Plover (Flussregenpfeifer, lit. “River Rain Whistler) from up close! They’re so tiny and adorable, I love them! :-)
Got really discouraged because I barely saw anything in the nature reserve today but he really brightened my day. Thank you Plover!
A baby Common Swift peeking out of its nest
I saw this adorable swift baby looking out of its nest today. Never seen one that wasn’t flying so this was a great sighting! :-)
I finally managed to see the Red-Backed Shrikes in my neighbourhood!
There is a pair of Red-Backed Shrikes in my neighbourhood that I haven't yet been able to see. I knew, however, where they typically hang out so I went there yesterday with my camera and tripod, set up the camera to point and potential perches and finally managed to see them and take a few short videos!
Their German name, Neuntöter, translates to "Nine Killer". It is said that they kill nine things before they actually eat one. This isn't actually too far fetched as Red-Backed Shrikes kill insects, small rodents or baby birds and hang them up on thorny bushes and other plants for later. The bush the female is perched on later on in the video is a blackberry bush which has thorns.
Ich folge Laszlo auf Mastodon und Pixelfed tatsächlich bereits :-) Einen Pixelfed-Account habe ich nicht, ich bin aber auf Mastodon und betreibe meine eigene Instanz für Vogelliebhaber und poste dort auch meine Fotos.
Morgens rausgehen und Vögel beobachten und fotografieren! Heute auch wieder gut vier Stunden unterwegs gewesen.
White Wagtail Hovering Above the Water
Wagtails are always fun to watch! Here's a White Wagtail I saw on my morning walk hovering above the (honestly rather disgusting-looking) water with its mouth already full of insects.
Spotted Flycatcher Taking a Break
Went for a walk and managed to take a photo of a bird I hadn’t been able to photograph yet: A Spotted Flycatcher!
Its German name, Grauschnäpper, translates to “Grey Snatcher” — probably because it likes snatching flies and other insects!
My recording of a Common Firecrest's song (and a question)
Macaulay Library ML584691401; © Marvin Johanning; Gütersloh, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Managed to get a decent recording of the Common Firecrest I heard today and it was a lot of fun! I mostly do bird photography, but I want to start recording birds' songs and calls with something that has better audio quality than my iPhone.
Basically: Does anyone know of a good and not outlandishly (≤ €200) expensive audio recorder you can use? Preferably one that also has microphones that can deal with wind noise.
Lots of interesting birds on my lunch walk
I always take a walk around my office during lunch. Finally managed to see and also record a firecrest. Such a tiny but cool-looking bird!
Eurasian Bullfinch after preening
Seeing a glowing (b)orb in the trees is always a delight! So here's a male Eurasian Bullfinch (Gimpel / Dompfaff in Germany) after just having preened, his feathers still slightly fluffed up.
He was sitting in a tree really far away, but spotting him was simple — so colourful! Saw him on the weekend in North-Western Germany.
salvaging gear will give you mats you’ll really want later in the game. You’ll probably have enough gold and can skip selling
I've been salvaging everything that I don't need and have been wondering - what does that even do? What do I do with the stuff I get from salvaging? Wouldn't it be better to just sell everything?
Rook on a cable
I was playing a game and heard a lot of loud cawing outside that sounded a bit "off", i.e. not like the cawing of the regular crows.
Therefore, I decided to look outside and saw this rook perched on a cable right next to my window!
Its beak is probably slightly open because of the heat. If I remember correctly, this is how bird's try to dissipate heat (their form of "panting", I guess) since they cannot sweat.
A rarity for my region — a Yellow-Billed Duck
I was taking a walk (as I always do) on Saturday morning around my neighbourhood. There's a couple of ponds around and on the bank of one of those ponds, I saw two strange ducks. Their bright yellow beaks really caught my attention and I took a couple of photos, but I thought they were just strange mallards.
Upon further research once I got home, however, it turned out that these ducks were, in fact, Yellow-Billed Ducks! They are only native to some parts of Africa. Not sure how or why they came here to North-Western Germany! Maybe escaped pets?
For that to happen, I believe that interacting with people from other instances and moving your community and account from one instance to another have to become possible / easier.
At present, people flock to the instances with most users as those often have more local content (local content is generally easier to find than federated content) and they often have a smaller risk of shutting down. If I create a community on a smaller instance, the chance of it being found and interacted with are also much smaller than if it had been created on a bigger instance (because of, as I said, local content being user to find).
Sure, I can create an account on myfirstlemmyinstance.com (example URL, not an actual instance) with 10 users, but if my instance decides to shut down, my community of, say, 500 users will now have to move somewhere else and all old content will be deleted.
Ideally, I think no one instance should have a million users to begin with.
After not having been able to see one for months, I finally saw a Green Woodpecker again! (North-Western Germany, June 2023)
After having eluded me for months, I finally managed to see a Green Woodpecker again! I often hear their laugh-like call, but haven't been able to see them for a while. They're one of my favourites!
If you haven't heard their calls yet, I strongly encourage you to go to YouTube and listen to them — they're fantastic. They really sound like someone's laughing at you.
A shiny and fluffy European Starling
I know these guys are frowned upon in the US, but they are a pleasant sight here in Germany!
In fact, their numbers in many of their native habitats (for example here in Germany) have actually been declining in the past years, so I am always happy to see some of them running around.
This particular bird was collecting some bugs and insects to feed to the young birds that were nearby. He ruffled his feathers a bit which is when I took this photo — looks so fluffy!
Male Ring-Necked Pheasant on a Field
We have a pair of Ring-Necked Pheasants in my neighbourhood and they tend to be pretty secretive. You only sometimes see them running around on the fields and it's always a delight! I have started calling them "fancy chickens" 😅
They're not actually native to Germany but were brought here from Asia a long while ago. They were bread, let go and subsequently hunted as a sport. Nowadays, hunting them isn't really common anymore, so they have begun becoming so common that most people wouldn't think they weren't native to here.