A trip to Cologne in Germany for a few days away to enjoy the Christmas Markets was a haze of food, drink and shopping, we even had snow when we arrived on Monday 4th December but it had melted away by the next morning. It has been 5 years since our last visit to what is one of my favourite places and it was comforting to find that not much has changed although it was much, much busier than I remember before.
Cologne
Cologne
I didn't take my binoculars or my camera with me this time but I managed a few wildlife sightings during our visit despite the very urban setting and Christmas themed activities.
The usual Ring-necked Parakeets were seen and heard screeching overhead and perched up in trees, early each morning flocks of them would appear outside our hotel room window to drink and bath in the puddles on the nearby flat roofs before dispersing for the day. Amongst them were at least 3 Alexandrine Parakeets, larger and with a louder and deeper screeching call. Also from the window I managed a few brief and distant views of totally black Red Squirrels as they dashed about in the nearby gardens.
A very noisy Peregrine was a nice sighting near the Cathedral as it gave an incredibly white looking Buzzard flying over a very hard time before being hassled itself by a very brave Carrion Crow. A Shag feeding on The Rhine near The Chocolate Museum was a surprise so far inland but the occassional Cormorant flying over was more expected. Very distant flocks of Geese were seen flying over fields as we whizzed by on the train on a visit to nearby Aachen, probably Grey Geese but also maybe just Canadas.
Aachen
All in all a very enjoyable trip and a nice start to the Christmas festivities, it's not my most favourite time of the year but maybe this year I might actually start to regain some of my previous Christmas spirit.
With the River Plym Great Northern Diver still being reported as present during our time away I was keen to go and look for it on our return to the UK and so I headed out on Saturday 9th December to see if I could find it. I caught the bus to Laira Bridge to start my search and quickly found it downriver heading towards me on the incoming tide, unfortunately a passing dinghy spooked it and it headed back down towards The Cattewater busily decimating the local crab population along the way. I then had a look upriver from the Bridge and was surprised to find a second bird floating about on the water just off Blagdon Meadow.
(Distant) Great Northern Diver, The Cattewater
Low tide was at 8:45am and on arriving at Laira Bridge at around 11:45am I was expecting to see some exposed mud along the estuary but the tide was already quite high with no mud on show at all and so I headed up along The Ride to have a look at Blaxton Meadow.
Very little was seen along the way in the strong breeze and the footpaths were incredibly muddy following all the recent heavy rain but I saw 2 Jay, a male Pheasant, a flock of 16 Redwings flying over with skulking birds later seen in the Holly bushes, a Stock Dove, at least 4 Ring-necked Parakeets and 3 Grey Squirrels.
Redwing
Ring-necked Parakeet - one of an introduced population competing for nest holes with native species
Blaxton Meadow wasn't flooded but the water was rushing in through the sluice gates and out on the mud the usual birds were present - 40 Shelduck, 37 Curlew, 34 Wigeon, at least 28 Snipe, 16 Oystercatcher, 8 Greenshank, a Black-tailed Godwit, 3 adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, 2 adult Common Gull, an adult Mediterranean Gull, an adult Great Black-backed Gull, 8 Heron and a Little Egret along with Redshank, Mallard, Herring Gulls and Black-headed Gulls and surprisingly only 3 Dunlin.
I continued onwards towards Marsh Mills to catch the bus home and on the way there I found 3 male and 4 female Goosander resting and preening near the gas pipe with a single male seen further upriver near the railway bridge, a nice finish to my walk.
Goosander
Goosander
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