“Bird hunting” without dead

Nation­wide obser­va­tion com­pe­ti­tion in the Low­er Oder Val­ley (May 11, 2010)

 

As part of a nation­wide obser­va­tion com­pe­ti­tion for ornithol­o­gists, Mar­tin Malk­mus, Tobias Schäfer, Andreas Wirs­ing and Sev­erin Zil­lich (BUND, Bun­desver­band Berlin) went “bird hunt­ing” on Sat­ur­day, May 8th, 2010 from mid­night until late in the evening. On your obser­va­tion route from Fel­chowsee via Schwedt to the Fid­di­chow Pold­er (10) you dis­cov­ered 123 species, includ­ing rar­i­ties such as the ruff and stilt, whiskered and white-winged tern. The high­light was def­i­nite­ly two mat­ing stilts, extreme­ly rare waders in the pold­er area. That would give hope for a sen­sa­tion­al breed­ing suc­cess. But if the pold­er is pumped dry again this year, as has been cus­tom­ary in the past, on the instruc­tions of the head of the nation­al park admin­is­tra­tion, Tre­ichel, then once again noth­ing will come of it.

With the 123 species observed, the four bird friends took 34th place out of 135 par­tic­i­pants. A great suc­cess! The “Bir­drace” cam­paign not only under­lines the out­stand­ing ornitho­log­i­cal impor­tance of Germany’s only flood­plain nation­al park, but also serves a good cause: BUND’s Natur & Umwelt GmbH donates two euros for each species of bird found to set up a new inter­net por­tal ornitho.de.

More about the results of the “Bir­drace 2010” at www.dda-birdrace.de. Attached is a pho­to of the bird watch­ing on May 8th, 2010.

Thomas Berg
CEO