A Last Walk Through Luxembourg's Canyon

Yesterday was my last in Luxembourg. My hosts Kristiana and Kerry – with their ridiculously full schedules of rehearsals, practice, correspondence, tour bookings, and travel – took the time to show me another nice walk through a lovely section of Luxembourg, along the river that forms a canyon through the middle of the city. We started under a true rookery – a collection Rook nests, a very strange European crow-like corvid.

The bridges that span the sandstone canyon are quite impressive.

On the cliff walls grow several nice wildflowers such as this pink rock cress and wild strawberry.

There's also an old chapel built right into the sandstone walls where soldiers defending the city would prepare themselves for the slaughter.

One of the most striking views of the city was this old, decrepit farm complex surrounded by newer homes and a very modern bank in the background.

Finally it was time for me to say goodbye to Kerry and Kristina as I headed to Freiburg, my home for a year 21 years ago.

From Mainz to Luxembourg – Sail Boats, Dippers, History, and Music!

Yesterday was a nice change from my normal routine – I first helped (OK, mostly watched and photographed) as the May family moved their sailboat from their front yard to their docks on the Rhein for the summer. The whole process took about 4 hours, which isn't bad. It involved hitching the trailer to the car, driving to the crane docks on the Main, getting it all ready to be lifted, erecting the sail mast, and the motoring down the Main to its mouth, then up the Rhein to the boat club docks. Then it was Tchüß to my wonderful hosts.

I then took a very pretty train ride from Mainz to Luxembourg, almost 3 1/2 hours, changing trains in Koblenz and Trier. There I was greeted by Kristina Mascher-Turner and Kerry Turner. Kristina and I went to grade school and middle school together and last saw each other in 1988.

After seeing Jackdaw at their house then Blackcap, Blue Tit, and Blackbird in the city park, they both took me on history walk through old town Luxembourg, a gorgeous city. In the first photo we're looking down at the small bridge where Kristina took the next picture looking back up at the overlook.

Just down the river from here we saw Eurasian Moorhen (now split from the Common Gallinule of the New World) and a delightful White-throated Dipper (now the first eBird entry for Luxembourg).

We then went to a really nice Alsatian restaurant called Goethe Stuff for lunch.

Luxembourgisch is a very interesting relative of German, but more distinct than most dialects, probably enough so to be called its own language. "Stuff," for example, is apparently the same as German "Stube," or restaurant-bar. I had Späztle with roasted goose liver, which was new for me. It was incredibly good.

Kerry and Kristina - One half of the American Horn Quartet.

This evening I was treated to the rehearsal of half of their vocal ensemble Intermedii which they hosted at home, along with 4 players of Renaissance instruments such as sackbut, bladderpipe, and cornetto. They're performing a benefit concert this coming Tuesday, and from the sounds of it, they're ready to go. My friend Scott Mason would be envious. I made this recording with my iPad of Fair Phyllis I Saw by John Farmer.

  Fair Phyllis Intermedii Rehearsal 2012-04-15 by Rich C. Hoyer

A Gorgeous Spring Day in central Germany

I had a wonderful, long, but enjoyable first day of my month-long vacation in Germany today, visiting Christiane and Matthias May and their two children Marcella and Marvin.

First order of business: a complete German breakfast with the most amazing breads, 10 kinds of (mostly French) cheeses, 3 different kinds of wurst, and smoked salmon. We also had Easter eggs, eaten with the family tradition of salt, pepper, mustard, olive oil, and white wine vingar – sort of a pre-constructed deviled egg.

Next was to visit the yarn store in nearby Oppenheim, a tourist village literally stuffed with wineries. I couldn't help myself and bought some yarn. My stepmom will be envious.

Chris and I then did a bit of sightseeing in village, going into the main town church, which here is Protestant, rather than the regionally dominant Catholic.

No afternoon in Germany is complete without coffee and cake. Chris and I each had a piece of Black Forest Cherry Cake and Eggnog Torte. I forget what Marvin's pastry was called.

In the late afternoon Marcella, Chris, and I took a nice walk from their house into the nearby countryside where there is a horse club and some trails into the fields with some nice habitat. We watched European Hares boxing, saw a few Roe Deer, and several wonderful birds such as White Stork, Stonechat, and heard two Nightingales.

Then in the evening we had some amazing wine and lighter dinner at the nearby "bouquet winery" Potsdamer Hof, overlooking their village of Bodenheim. Some of the land planted to grapes used by the winery is leased from the May family.

Shopping, Boxing, and Shipping for Gambell

One of the WINGS tours I do each year is Gambell, Alaska in late May/early June. While Jon Dunn is the primary leader and Paul Lehman the second leader, rather than go out in the field with the group all day, I actually do the cooking for the week-long tour. This involves planning the menu, buying the food, getting it there, and cooking it – this year for 15 people including myself (though there's a chance a couple more may sign up). Think of it as a week-long dinner party.

This is Gambell, looking NW over town towards Russia. (Yes, this is actually where you CAN see Russia from Alaska, 45.3 miles away.)

After planning the meals, I next need to buy the food, and the first step is to buy all the non-perishables here in Tucson and ship them all to Gambell, which I usually do in early May. Since I leave tomorrow for a month's vacation in Europe, I had to do all this during my short time at home after the Jamaica tour I just led.

Before: All-day shopping yesterday using a rental car, about $1000 worth of groceries.

After: Boxing until after midnight, finishing up in the early morning. Box contents all carefully itemized.

I returned the rental car just 20 minutes late. Now to pack for a month in Europe!

Goodness, Jamaica is Full of Endemics!

Not even done with our second day of birding, and we've seen all but 2 of Jamaica's 27 AOU-recognized species. One of the most wanted showed itself extremely well this morning, the utterly charming Jamaican Tody.

We'll easily make the most out of the next four days though. Some people only got perfunctory views of some of those birds. I think only one person saw the Jamaican Elaenia well this morning, for example. But on our first afternoon yesterday, all got great views of this Crested Quail-Dove, perhaps the most "missable" endemic of all.

And besides those 27 AOU-recognized species are another dozen or so subspecies that you really should see while in Jamaica, as it only makes sense to consider them separate species – the Caribbean Dove, the Rufous-throated Solitaire, the Bahama Mockingbird, even the Common Ground-Dove – not to mention the obvious split of the Streamertail. I suspect in the future the AOU will slowly come to see the truth, and Jamaica will have around 40 recognized endemics.

In the meantime, I'm also enjoying reacquainting myself with the butterflies and bugs, and there's a lot here I haven't seen. Some new island birds surely await me as well. Northern Shoveler was new yesterday morning, my 174th species for the island.

This Martial Scrub-Hairstreak was at our Port Royal Hotel.

This Caribbean Scrub-Hairstreak was on the crotons at the Hector's River White-tailed Tropicbird spot, a nice diversion until the tropicbirds came in.

Does anyone know what this pentatomid stink bug is?

Sound Quiz from Costa Rica

A cross-posting here of a sound quiz on my Birdingblogs post from yesterday:

http://birdingblogs.com/2012/richhoyer/carara-national-park-%E2%80%93-a-sound-quiz

I actually know what it is (I saw it), and I was quite surprised. So now I'm not surprised that there have been no guesses so far, despite my posting it at xeno-canto, and the Birdingblogs page having been visited over 80 times. We'll give it a week.

Tapantí National Park Costa Rica – Rich in flowers, birds, bugs, stuff

On my just-finished Costa Rica tour, we spent a half day at Tapantí National Park, a lush area of cloud forest habitat on the Caribbean slope at 1300-1400 meters elevation.

On the way there, we stopped just short of the national park at the upper end of a vast area of sun-grown coffee. While the bird activity was our main focus, I couldn't help but notice this odd fungus-like growth on a twig next to the road.

I looked a little closer and was amazed to see that what looked like fungal strands was in fact the many antennae of a colony of nymphal crickets or katydids. (Click on the photo to open a window with a full-sized image.) What are these?

We saw some great birds up in the cloud forest, such as Spangle-cheeked Tanager, Black-bellied Hummingbird, Barred Hawk, and Red-faced Spinetail at a nest, but there is so much to see here.

This is a Black-faced Solitaire on its nest, a mossy cup (almost surely lined with tree fern bark scales) on a bank above the road.

There are a lot of orchids here, but few were blooming. This one appears to be Elleanthus glaucophyllus, and it may be a hummingbird-pollinated species.

It was sunny enough for some butterfly activity, but this isn't the best time of year for them. This is a Harmonia Satyr, Hermeuptychia harmonia.

This clump of lichen was particularly attractive.

Finally, an amazing wasp nest up in a tree. I suspect they are nocturnal and were roosting by day.

What a gorgeous forest, and I already look forward to my tour here next March.