Birds seen in Europe (Part 5)

Where there is the sea, there will be gulls. After all, the sea is what a gull calls home. Looking back, we did spend much of our vacation close to water, so it was natural to have spotted gulls in almost every city that we visited.

Common Gull

Unlike what the name suggests, the Common Gull was not really everywhere. Characterised by a red eye-ring, we first spotted it at Roskilde, Denmark, atop one of the houses. While on the boat from Flam to Gudvangen on Naeroyfjord (one of Norway’s scenic fjords) however, there were many of them following us, looking out for scraps of food.

Birds seen in Europe (Part 4)

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

Eurasian Magpie

While in Bergen, Norway, we decided to make a quick visit to the closest Stave Church in the area, located in Fantoft. As we walked up the hill from the tram station, we saw a colourful bird fly and seat itself on a signpost. It was surely a Magpie, but much larger than what I’d seen in India. It’s blue and green feathers against the dominant black and white looked beautiful. It sat sufficiently long, that I got a good picture.

Eurasian Magpie at Fantoft, Norway

Birds spotted in Europe (Part 1)

Where there is food and water, there will be animal life. This is particularly true for birds for whom there are no boundaries… the sky is their limit!

On our recent 15-day trip to Europe, specifically The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, we spotted many birds, a few that we see in our backyards and neighbourhoods in India, but many that I hadn’t seen before. Whenever possible, I tried to capture them on my camera.

Our first stop was the tulip gardens of Keukenhof, The Netherlands. With the millions of flowers, I guess our attention was on them and not on the birds that were possibly around. At one point many were looking way up high to check out a distinctive knocking sound. It was a woodpecker hammering away, scarcely visible among the trees. Before I could focus, it had flown away. We didn’t see a woodpecker again on our trip.

The cradle of the Dutch tulip

Tulips are found all over The Netherlands and parts of Europe, but when one talks of them, Keukenhof, with its millions of colourful flowers is the place that comes to mind.

Keukenhof, April 2018

Not many would be aware that the first large collection of tulips was brought to the Netherlands and successfully cultivated by Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius, in the Hortus botanicus, a garden laid out in premises of the University of Leiden, for education and research purposes.