November 2016

23-26th. Berlin. A meeting to develop a resolution and guidelines for Eurobats about light pollution. Interestingly, the former East is still orange from sodium lamps, the former West Berlin is white at night with new LEDs. Image from a NASA satellite.

East Berlin graffiti.

I headed through a real German Christmas market at high speed. This is where a terrorist drove a truck into crowds about 3 weeks later, killing a dozen people.

The main ornithological highlight was an urban goshawk mobbed by hooded crows flying past the Liebniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research.

19th - Devon with Adrian Woodhall and Kurt Vickery. We were at Dawlish Warren soon after high tide, and saw the expected species as well as a great northern diver, 2 Slavonian grebes, a spoonbill, a long-tailed duck and about 120 common scoter.

Cirl buntings have been in the news in the last week - after a decline caused by agricultural intensification, their numbers increased from just 118 pairs in 1989 to 1,078 pairs this year because of agri-environment schemes. Spring barley is grown so stubble now stays in fields after harvesting.. We went to see the buntings at Labrador Bay where at least 20 were on view.