Africa Wild

Dewi wrote:Brilliant series of the Blackbird sunning behaviour Mel.

They do this for various reasons. Sometimes for body temperature regulation on cold mornings. They also have a preen gland which produces a waterproof coating for the feathers. Sunning converts this oil into vitamin D which keeps them in good health. This behaviour also aids in preening and keeping the feathers in good condition. It helps to dislodge parasites effectively.

Thanks, Dewi for explaining that behaviour. I rule out the first reason as it was a hot day, so I reckon it had to do with keeping his feathers in good condition and maybe waterproofing them.

Richprins wrote:Maybe also they just trip and fall down for a while?

Excellent, Mel!

-O -O -O I didn't feed them any alcohol, you know.

Lisbeth wrote:Kindly inform me by PM, when you post things like this that interest me ENORMOUSLY We were about to go to that part of the world when we were supposed to visit you last year, but all got cancelled because of the passing away of the 100 years birthday "child"

Have you ever been to Hallig Nordstrandischmoor or any of the other halligen? I have the intent to do the cancelled trip maybe next summer, going through Germany to Denmark and see a few places that I do not know very well. I have been to Fanö (il was still allowed to go along the beach by car by low tide) as a youngster and to Flensborg, but I always wanted to go to Lübeck and to the wattenmeer (wadden sea) of the North Sea.

Apologies.

Haven't been on a Hallig yet. Would only be for a day trip anyway as although it's heavenly quiet there we would miss
having the possibility to go out for food at night. I don't do cooking on Föhr.

My neighbour just returned from Fanö and reported that you are still allowed to take your car to the beach.
Something that seems impossible for me. Just spoils the atmosphere of a beach, methinks.

Then you get storks, some of them even all year around as there is a bird shelter on the island. This is a very controversially discussed project as there are voice that say it is interfering with nature. But the original reason behind it was that injured birds were taken care of. But they didn’t manage to fly south and settled on the island.
The unique thing about the storks on Föhr is that they feed in the Wadden like the seagulls etc. However, I’ve yet to encounter one of them there.

We only had a small backyard and the trees around it didn’t allow for much space into the sky. But I was lucky enough to find 12 storks flying through exactly that space one afternoon. Couldn't get them all in one frame though...

Last year we had an apartment that directly faced one of the many stork nests on the island. The young ones were already born and I had a ball watching them whenever we weren’t out.

They…

showed me some roof ballet:



Let me listen to their greeting rattles:



Taught me preening:



And showed off with an elegant flight above my head:

Another usual suspect is the cormorant:

And the oyster catcher:





Funnily enough I haven’t seen a single one this summer, but hundreds and hundreds of them last year.
There were so many that it got to a point where they started to get on my nerves as they are a real noisy bunch…

lovely shots Mel

Great sequence of "your" storks

Yeah, it probably would be too boring to stay on a Hallig

nice White Storks, and Oyster Catcher