Birds of the Léman
My last post about birds concerned the great crested grebe (which appears in a most hilarious way in Scoop — “Lord Copper,” he was saying, “no man shall call me a liar unchastised. The great crested grebe does hibernate.”)
Although a more recent week-end excursion on the Léman was richer in raptors, it was also a pleasure to watch the noble heron (Héron cendré, I guess) guarding the piers:
However, the thrilling part was to watch raptors fishing; to be precise, I think most of them were the same species
which — interpreting my bird-book — is quite likely to be the Milan noir (Milvus migrans) (it might be the Milan royal, but that seems much more unlikely). Of course, most of my attempts to photograph the fishing of the milans resulted in blurry pictures of the surface of the lake; however, some succeeded, like this one
or that one
Charming!
Anonymous
22 Jun 11 at 8:12
Dear Emmanuel,
Of the three pictures of raptors the first one depicts
a Red Kite (Milvus milvus) – or Milan Royal in french –
note the distinct white patches on the wing tips, the
light grey head and the red plumage (the black kite
gives a much browner impression on the whole) – and
btw: Switzerland has one of the densest populations of
red kites in the world, so it’s certainly not a rarity.
The two other pictures show black kites. Even though young
red kites can show brownish upper wing sides, they are never
as “plain” as the one in the pictures. Moreover, I constantly see
black kites go fishing over the Zurich lake, but very rarely red kites. Also note the less gracile wing posture…
Curiously enough, one of the best spots to get good pictures of
black kites should be the dozentenfoyer at eth. Never tried myself, but the kites can come pretty close there.
Michael
24 Jul 11 at 2:40
Thanks a lot for the information! I’ve seen the black kites from the Dozentenfoyer many times (I can also sometimes get quite good views from my office…), but I’ve never brought my camera there unfortunately…
Kowalski
24 Jul 11 at 16:45