Listing Through Life

phoenicurus (from phoinix, crimson, red, purple, and ouros, tailed) ochruros (from okhros, pale yellow, and ouros, tailed)

Tuesday, April 18, 2019 — 3:00 pm

Waldenbuch, Germany — Ritter Sport Museum

Here’s the area by the Ritter Museum where I was seeing all the birds. I walked to the end of the lane and then started back.

A small bird landed on the wooden fence on the left, about 25 feet from where I was. It was a Black Restart, slate blue-gray overall with a black face and breast and a bright rufous tail.

It was content to perch there and observe me observing it.

I saw several more the next day in Murren, Switzerland, including a male sitting on a cross on top of a church and a female that actually sang a little bit from a roof edge.

chloris chloris (green, greenish)

Tuesday, April 18, 2019 — 2:45 pm

Waldenbuch, Germany — Ritter Sport Museum

A few minutes after spotting the Great Tit, I found another bird. It was flitting around in a tree maybe three feet off the ground. My impression was that it was trying to impress a female, although I didn’t see a second bird. The bird was in the direct sun, which made details hard to see. But I could see its finch bill and the yellow edge on its wings. Otherwise, its plumage was a mix of green, yellow, and gray. Back at the apartment, I was able to identify it from my photo as a European Greenfinch.

I got another much better and much closer look a few days later. A pair of them were coming to feeders in the courtyard of the Hohenzollern Castle. I didn’t get a photo of the female. Again they were active, rarely staying in one spot for more than a few seconds.

parus (titmouse) major (greater)

Tuesday, April 18, 2019 — 2:40 pm

Waldenbuch, Germany — Ritter Sport Museum

After I finished eating in the Ritter Cafe, I left my family and wandered around the area. I hadn’t gone far when I spotted a couple of Great Tits foraging low in a grove of bushes. They were noticeably larger than Black-capped Chickadees. Their backs and wings were gray/blue. Their heads were black with a large white cheek patch. They were yellow underneath with a bold black strip from the chin to the base of the tail. Their behavior was typical of chickadees, moving about rapidly and occasionally hanging upside-down or landing on the ground.

When I wandered back past the spot a few minutes later, one had flown into a tree in the field nearby where it was singing its loud, simple song.

I saw and heard many more during the week, especially in the woods near Panzer Kaserne. They were frequently foraging in company with Eurasian Blue Tits. Both species are striking, but I saw them both so frequently that they became almost old hat.

ardea (heron. In Roman mythology the town of Ardea was razed to the ground, and from the ashes rose a lean, pale bird, shaking the cinders from its wings and uttering mournful cries) cinerea (ash-gray)

Tuesday, April 18, 2019 — 2:30 pm

Waldenbuch, Germany — Ritter Sport Museum

I was still eating lunch in the Ritter Cafe when I spotted this heron flapping low above the trees on the hillside not far away. It looked very much like a Great Blue Heron, but smaller, about the size of a Great Egret.

I saw two more a few days later. They flew right over the car as we drove near the Stuttgart Airport. They were slate gray with an almost white neck. I never saw one on the ground, and I never got a photo of one. Here’s a photo I swiped off the internet.

carduelis carduelis (goldfinch)

Tuesday, April 18, 2019 — 2:19 pm

Waldenbuch, Germany — Ritter Sport Museum

We were sitting in the Ritter Cafe when I spotted two small birds flit down from a bush and land on a fence along the edge of the field. They were a long way away, but I knew immediately what they were. They were the size of American Goldfinches and colored about the same as American Goldfinches are in the winter except for a bright yellow slash on the wings and a striking black, white, and red face.

When I wandered around the area after lunch, I saw them again much closer, but they never stayed in one place long enough for me to get a photo, and I never saw them again.

North American Lifer #561

Sunday, October 15, 2023 — 8:15 am

Lake County, Illinois — Kruger Road

This was one of only two lifers that I saw in Europe that I didn’t manage to get some sort of photo of. (The other is the Gray Heron.) I was surprised recently when I noticed that they are now seen frequently in Lake County, Illinois, only a handful of miles from where I used to live. If they were there when I lived there seven years ago, I didn’t know about it, but of course, I wasn’t on eBird then.

The place where they’ve been seen recently that was nearest to where I was going to be was Kruger Road. This turned out to be an almost-abandoned section of blacktop that cuts through a weedy area in Hawthorn Woods. I parked along the road and began walking. Almost immediately, I spotted American Goldfinches and Pine Siskins. Five minutes later, two European Goldfinches landed in a tree right over my head.

I stuck around for another half hour and eventually saw about 13 of them, mostly feeding in the thistles in the field. They acted just like American Goldfinches.

Later in the day I met another birder at Moraine Hills State Park. I asked him about the European Goldfinches. He said they’d been originally released in McHenry County but almost immediately moved east to the shore of Lake Michigan. They took hold there and have been slowly expanding their range. An article I found online said they thing they escaped from a pet bird supplier in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

The article said they don’t appear to be a threat to native species. They aren’t aggressive. They build nests in trees that don’t interfere with other species’ nests. They feed on non-native thistle plants and breed earlier in the year than American Goldfinches, so there shouldn’t be any competition for food.

They are considered naturalized in Illinois, which means, according to eBird, that they are “self-sustaining, breeding in the wild, persisting for many years, and not maintained through ongoing releases.” As such, they count in official eBird totals.

I know introducing species to places often turns bad, but if you’re going to do it, do it with pretty birds like European Goldfinches, and not with European Starlings.