Nest mapping

To go bird-watching, you’ve got to get up early. The earlier the better. Luckily for us, Jacob’s assignment from one of the environmental planning offices where he works was not to look for birds but to spot their nests. This allowed us to get on the road at 8:30, a fairly civilised time, and make our way over the Lahnberge and towards the countryside east of Marburg. Equipped with many a map, some binoculars and even a spotting scope, we cruised from point to point checking if the nests marked on the map were still there. After parking alongside the forest’s edge, we wandered into the woodlands and followed the paper maps like amateur orienteers.

Certain nests have species specific features. The red kite for instance (German: Rotmilan; Latin: Milvus milvus) makes use of human rubbish such as plastic and string. Germany has one of the largest red kite populations in the world where they are a protected species. Although also protected in the UK, they don’t seem to be quite as popular. Referred to on Wikipedia as “ubiquitous scavengers”, the page also recalls their mention in Shakespeare’s King Lear when he dubs his evil oldest daughter Goneril a “detested kite”: “when the kite builds, look to your lesser linen”, in other words, when kites build their nests, don’t hang out your best linen as they may steal it. Due to population declines, red kites were reintroduced into the UK from Germany in the mid 1990s to help restabilise their population. Another bird of interest whose nest we saw was the sparrow hawk (German: Sperber; Latin: Accipiter nisus) which builds its nest in larch trees. Several nests are often found together in a cluster located on neighbouring trees. The difference in size between the female sparrow hawk and the male is one of the biggest in the animal kingdom, the female being almost twice as big as the male!

As the afternoon drew on, we finished up one section of the map and headed back to Marburg. Making use of the car we had for the day, we stopped at various points along the way to enjoy the sun-drenched plains of the Amöneburg basin. Once back in Marburg, a beer on top of the Spiegelslustturm was called for and we watched the sun set on a glorious bird-filled day.

A beautiful half-timbered house in a village near Marburg

Bird-watching galore

Watching the sunset from the top of Marburg