I've just had a lovely week birding and butterflying in the French and Swiss Alps, with one long hike in particular taking us up to 2200m. The scenery, as you can see, was spectacular and, although the trip was mainly for butterflies, there were some good birds to be seen too whenever I remembered to look up!
This Short-toed Eagle caught, and then dropped, a fairly large snake in a field right next to us and continued to hunt for the duration of one of our walks. Other montane specialties we got to see included displaying Water Pipits and Rock Thrush, Citril Finches (probably the best views I've ever had of these), Griffon Vulture, Lammergeier very briefly, and Ring Ouzel, whilst we only got to hear Alpine Accentor and Black Grouse. We also did some lowland birding around Geneva, where we saw some young Great Reed Warblers clambering around the same reedbed as this Little Bittern, which obligingly landed in front of the hide long enough for me to take its picture.
