For the past three winters I've been roped into doing part of the monthly waterbird count on the lake, covering the sections between Immenstaad and the lido at Friedrichshafen. If you want to visualise, it's this section of the shore. Today was my contribution to the February count, along with my trusty co-counters AR and NK. Being young (har har) and fit (enough) it's done on the bike, so about a 35km round trip for me. Being older than I was, it's done on an e-bike. Today was pretty typical of the last few winters.
Immenstaad starts from the landing pier on the lake. Walk out to the end in the early morning, divide up responsibility for the species being counted and set to work. This morning there's a cold breeze blowing in from the N and the sky is overcast. There's the threat of rain later, so we're hoping to stay dry, but not overoptimistic.
The lake towards Switzerland is unusually empty, only a smattering of Great Crested Grebes out there, mostly distant flecks bobbing in the waves. There's a number of them paired up and head-shaking at one another (seems early, given they start breeding late on the lake, but perhaps these are heading off to other waters) but most of them are hunched up and chilling. Towards the shore the ducks are mostly huddled in the bay immediately east of the harbour; we have to go around to the adjacent beach to see them properly, so cover the remainder of the bay first. I've seen it busier, but there's a reasonable selection out there: Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, Mallard, Gadwall, a few Goosander, surprisingly only one Red-crested Pochard (normally there's a decent number of them here), a scatter of Coot and Mute Swans. Just as we leave the pier to head to the bay, the entire flock of duck spooks out and swirls around the wider bay a few times. About a third land in an area we've already counted, some move off entirely and the rest head back to the little bay they were in. So, an estimate instead of a proper count. Never mind. About 600 or so Pochard and 200-ish Tufted. A closer look from the beach doesn't reveal anything interesting among them, so we head on to stop 2.
The second stop is nice: the Dornier mole behind the Airbus complex. It sounds a bit crap, but is actually quite a haven of peace and quiet with a stretch of trees running along the mole to a small protected area jutting into the lake and cutting the Immenstaad bay off from the Fischbach bay. First a look on the Immenstaad side to mop up any birds tucked away near the shore, not visible from the pier, then back across to the slipway on the east bank to start the next section. The Lipbach enters the lake through a little nature reserve here and this is about the only place to look into it sensibly. There's no action in the little heronry yet, and the cormorants aren't back from their winter holidays, so the place is inhabited by the usual band of Little Grebes (24 today) and a batch of Black-headed Gulls, fresh from gorging at the nearby sewage works, plus a few ducks and Coot.
On again to Fischbach, where we can stand at the entrance to the harbour and cover the eastern end of the section. At the moment the lake is quite low - most of the precipitation falling as snow in the mountains, so the lake draws down until the snowmelt - and there are broad shingly, muddy shores exposed below the revetments. This is giving the dabbling ducks and the gulls a good chance to get among the stones and fossick, so there are more Teal and Gadwall than in autumn, a nice male Pintail upending; more Goosander hunting fry in the shallows too. The bay in front of the lido here is one of the better spots for small gulls; a few Common Gulls and one or two Caspians in the area are easy enough to find among the Black-headeds and Yellow-legs at this time of year.
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| Gadwall and Coot |
Next stop is the shoreline path below the MTU buildings (Friedrichshafen is sooo scenic) where we walk the bikes along the narrow shoreline between the factory and the lake. When the lake is high or there's a stiff westerly blowing the path is often closed off, and indeed is frequently trashed by the winter storms, but today the wind is offshore and the water quite calm. Weirdly there are very few grebes off the shoreline here today - normally you can expect a hundred or more, but today only a third that number. However, this is the section where Black-throated Divers begin to appear reliably and there are indeed about 10 in view today. Again, the low water means more dabbling duck are in action - this time a couple of Wigeon among the flock: pretty scarce on this part of the lake.
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| Black-throated Divers on a sunnier day |
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| Wigeon. On a foggier day |
Getting close to the end now. A brief stop at the yacht club (no public access, sorry) brings a Curlew (!) and a few more divers close in, before we end up at the Friedrichshafen lido. A nice long pier here gives a view across the bay, back towards the yacht club for one section and towards the Schlosskirche for the final tiny section. It's again not exactly heaving with birds, but a couple of - relatively - nice birds with another close diver and a single Shelduck. By the time we're finishing up, the only cold-water swimmer of the day is stripping off beside us and it's spitting with rain (probably why he's the only cold-water swimmer today!)
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| A mixed bag of large gulls. Fun. If you like that kind of thing (I do) |
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