lake in english garden

this was a good sign of potentially decent birding…..

The greylag goose was present…and I’d just seen a whole lot in London’s Hyde park a month earlier…

Why did the greylag geese cross the road?

a female European blackbird

a blackbird sunning himself that morning

A white wagtail greeted us…

contrast of blackbird and white daisies

The blue tits were everywhere

A tapping noise led us to this greater spotted woodpecker high up

greater spotted woodpecker

A blackcap showed nicely

And then in one of those magical moments that only happen very occasionally when bird and nature and colour and light come together, this tufted duck swam into the red coloured reflection of the overhanging red leaves…

Tufted duck

a mallard against the much commoner green leaf reflections

And just before we left, this beautiful head appeared above the vegetation by the edge of the southernmost end of the lake,,, a Mandarin duck! As the rain was coming down by now I decided to come back again the next day…..

so about 630 am the next morning, I did the 15 min walk from the Hotel Platzl skirting the Hofgarten and Finanzgarten to go by the underpass to the southernmost tip of the English Garden….

the early morning light seeped through the foliage on the fast flowing river…

Some bar-headed geese were resting by the bank

Hullo!

The English Garden Munich is a strange place….beautiful lakes and streams, forests and flowers….and surfers??? in a small stream next to a bridge where the water was flowing in a torrent….maybe twenty metres long, you could see grown men with their wetsuits jumping in for a 10 second ‘surf’….they seemed to be having fun anyway!

But back to the birding now…on the misty moors, this raven seemed at peace

And then I found the Mandarin duck which I’d shot from afar the day before…quite resplendent

They walked about…peered at the fast current and then jumped in….

A very friendly chaffinch whom I’d seen a lot of in the Cotswolds in England a few weeks earlier

magnificent but mean looking red crested pochard

and in the hofgarten area this smart Fieldfare showed itself.

fieldfare with breakfast in mouth

Mistle thrush

another mistle thrush

the early morning female blackbird getting the worm

and just before I ended the morning, this noisy fellow drew attention to himself

Just a common european blackbird but quite attractive in the morning light with his orange beak, yellow eye and white tail feathers.

and last bird of the morning as the sun rose was this crow perched in front of the fading moon….