I was back in Berlin for another city trip last weekend but made a visit to Moorlinse Buch, north-east of the city, at the recommendation of a fellow birder. At first, and despite being on the outskirts of the city, almost on the border with Brandenburg, it seemed like any old city park with just a few Greylag Geese, Coots and grebes present. There was a lot of songbird migration, however, with a constant stream of Chaffinches, accompanied by numerous Siskins, at least one Brambling, a Woodlark and even two Bearded Tits. It soon became clear, though, that it wasn't only songbirds which were on the move, as a flight of 180 Greylags arrived a little after 9am.
The 09:05 flight from Scandinavia!
More and more mixed groups of geese continued to arrive all morning so that, by the time I left a couple of hours later, the 30-strong flock of Greylags had grown to around 600, together with 60+ Tundra Bean Geese and 20-30 White-fronted Geese. The Bean Geese were especially nice to watch since I rarely get to see them well in Belgium, with one bird in particular having me in fits of laughter as its attempts at preening its tail feathers ended up with it spinning round and round on the water like a dog chasing its tail!
A passing Crane even came to check out all the commotion of the arriving geese before deciding that was not the kind of company it wanted to keep and flying on.
