Wien!

Vienna, Austria

Sunday 11 August 2024 90 °F

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6:

I have arrived to Vienna! I am here with a program called Berkshire Choral International which provides adult choristers with opportunities to sing the great choral/orchestral repertoire at festivals and halls in the US, and throughout Europe. We will sing Bruckner, Elgar, and Schubert in the Musikverein this saturday and I am serving as a fully-funded conducting apprentice for the week. It has been a great time so far!

Across the pond, I flew on a “rare bird” operated by Lufthansa — a 747-400. This airplane, known as the Queen of the Skies, will be retired within a few years…

And some photos from sightseeing around Vienna the past couple days:

Today I took two subway U-bahn trains and a bus to get to Augen National Park to go birding. I didn’t have a ton of hopeful target lifers other than possibly Syrian Woodpecker or European Bee-eater. I started off the excursion with a family of MUTE SWNS and cygnets:

And these GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS:

EUROPEAN BLUE TIT:

GREAT TIT:

BARN SWALLOWS:

COMMON WOODPIGEON:

One unexpected surprise was a man approaching me on the trail, completely naked with willy out. I was pretty shocked to have stumbled upon a naturist colony in this park and high-tailed it through the area, putting my camera away so it didn’t seem I had the wrong intention. Culture shock — didn’t expect to observe this today.

The preserve itself was beautiful with some waterways and many forested areas:

And nice views from the train ride back to the Schönbrunn area:

Bird-of-the-day to the Great Tits, no double entendre intended.

I am here until sunday morning. One other excursion I hope to do is the train to Bratislava, Slovakia on thursday afternoon mainly for sightseeing but possibly to build a small Slovakia eBird list too. We shall see — stay tuned! Then on Sunday, I fly all the way to Idaho!

Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1304 Species

Posted by skwclar 19:53 Archived in Austria