Having done very little exploring of higher altitudes in Europe, I saw that the French alpine area of Haute-Savoie was very close to Geneva, so I arranged 3 nights rather blindly in a small lodge called "La Bournerie" just up the hill from the small ski resort of Grand Bornand. It turned out to be a great choice. It was a very old (1805) and small lodge, and the room was small, but the setting was magnificent and the proprietors were very kind and helpful. Sylvie Vadon is a wonderful cook and we were treated by hearty dishes of the area (sausages, potatoes, and the heavenly local cheese Reblochon). Once a week Grand Bornand hosts a small farmer's market which was perfect for our lunch needs.
The beautifully maintained trails led everywhere from our lodge. The most common singers were the Black Redstarts, the White Wagtails, Goldfinches, and as always, the Chaffinches. The slopes were full of vibrant wildflowers and butterflies:
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| Small Heath (Coenonympha pamphilus), the same genus as our abundant Common Ringlet |
The first morning there was an unknown thrush singing around our lodge, a bit of stalking turned up a Fieldfare, in the same genus as our American Robin. They were quite common in this area, but we did not see any others the entire trip. After a morning hike, we took on a very steep trail up from the nearby Col de la Colombiรจre (a famed climb from the tour of France) and were rewarded with outstanding views, close encounters with ibex, 3 new life birds, and some quite interesting butterflies, including the diminutive Little Blue.
We had a brief but distinctive view of the Lammergeier, a very rare and huge vulture that has been re-introduced into this area. Flocks of Yellow-billed (or Alpine) Choughs were amazing for their swooping flight and buzzy whistling calls. Along with wheatears and Black Redstarts we were fortunate in finding a singing male Rufous-tailed Rock Thrush that we had missed last fall in Spain.
A later steep hike in the area was notable for views of marmot and chamois.
In Geneva we enjoyed walking in the Botanic Gardens, although the birds were all common. Everywhere you see Black Kites overhead, even over urban areas. Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) was notable for its many Yellow-legged Gulls and a breeding pair of Red-crested Pochards with young.
We flew to Berlin and immediately got on a train northwards to the small town of Lychen near the border of the states of Brandenberg and Mecklenberg, or about half the way to the Baltic Sea. It was an attractive area of grain fields, scrubby pine woods, and small lakes. We stayed in a comfortable inn with a good restaurant (important in this small of a town!), the Waldesruh. The room once again was small and basic, in a lovely setting. The included breakfast was a varied buffet with wonderful dark bread, cheeses, meats, cereal, etc., which allowed us to also take some out for lunch.
The reason we chose this town was quite nearby there lives a good naturalist/guide named Rolf Nessing. He took us out our first two days in Lychen, and drove us first to the western portion of Brandenberg, and then to the east and southeast, close to the Polish border. We finally started getting some variety of raptors, starting with the close relative of our Bald Eagle the White-tailed Eagle, which was common in our area. We were lucky to catch a good flight look at the Eurasian Hobby, which is similar to a Merlin.
Common Cranes were new for us, and although we were too late for any displaying, we saw many family groups, usually of two parents and one chick.
Shorebirds other than lapwings were not anywhere unfortunately, but we did catch one Common Redshank in a display flight and making its loud song. Gulls were all the expected breeding Black-headeds, except for 3 Little Gulls that were on the shore of the Gulper See in western Brandenberg.
Other highlights were the nesting White Storks, Golden Oriole, and a cooperative Nightingale singing and showing itself in the road. Both Wood and Icterine Warblers were new for us, the latter doing some remarkable imitative singing at Lake Sabrina, near the town of Willmine. Linnet, Serin, and Bullfinch we only were able to see one individual of each. In the woods the most common singer was the Blackcap (along with the inevitable Chaffinch and European Robin).
After our time with Rolf, we spent a couple of days on our own, but without a vehicle we were limited to local walks. The best was a dawn walk right out of our inn (locking myself out in the process, which meant on my return that I could not easily get back in until breakfast was served) up the road, where I saw the amazing Black Woodpecker, a large Dryocopus similar to our Pileated. I had really wanted this one, and was disappointed not to have found it with Rolf, and here it was not 100 yards from our room, calling and showing itself very close by! Out in the fields there were numerous song flights of Skylarks and passing cranes.
We did feel a bit restricted from our lack of any German, and almost no one spoke English. Complex bus trips and trying to order a decongestant were a challenge. It's tough to mime blowing your nose to a stranger, especially when you really need to blow your nose, and you also need to buy kleenex! But people were friendly enough, one man allowed me the use of his cell phone to call Berlin.
Speaking of which...we ended up with nine nights back in Berlin. We had a fortunate rental of a small one room apartment with a kitchen in a central enough location and close to the Moritzplatz Ubahn stop. They are called the IMA loft apts, on Ritterstrasse, and they are on the top floor of six mostly devoted to dance and music studios, graphic design firms, architects, etc, which made for an interesting courtyard at times. We would hear occasionally the singers at their lessons, and see the dance students working out across the courtyard. The kitchen allowed us to have our breakfasts in, once we figured out how to make coffee without any real coffeemaker. Before we left we got to enjoy the so-called Turkish market in the area which was fun (we ate much too much pistachio baklava). We found a decent Vietnamese and a quite good Turkish and Bavarian restaurant within walking distance and went to them each two times.
We gloried in the art and were absorbed by the history of this most diverse city. I was fascinated by the presence of remains of the Wall, and of the documentation center and open field exhibits on the Bernauer Strasse. Close to our apartment was a section of remaining wall, along with a museum called the 'Topographies of Terror', which was on the very site where much of the bureaucracy of Nazi-state terror was conducted. Amazing stuff, very well presented in all of its horror.
Other than the Gemaldegalerie with its magnificent Vermeers, Rembrandts, and early Flemish and German works, we found the Berggruen collection the most interesting. Heinz Berggruen was a friend and early collector of Picasso and Matisse and had a remarkable eye.
We did several long park walks, in Sans Souci, the Tiergarten, and Tegel Forest, enjoying what birds there were but not finding anything new. It wasn't until our walk over to the monastery of Chorin, a small town about an hour by rail from central Berlin, that we found two new woodpeckers, the Middle Spotted and the Gray-faced. In the half-ruined monastery, we enjoyed Beethoven's Pastoral symphony and a concert performance of the first act of Wagner's Die Walkure.
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| Monastery at Chorin, site of an annual summer music festival |
