Mute Swan

The first thing I came upon when I reached the shore of Lac de Neuchatel for the first time were people feeding these Mute Swans. They slowly waddled up the sand to meet the people as they most likely do daily. What a change being able to see these large birds so close compared to the distant views I'm used to seeing of Tundra Swans around here.

The Swans where everywhere on the lake and they weren't very weary of people. They swam slowly and eloquently on the water striking gorgeous poses. Occasionally they would hold their wings slightly above their bodies as they swam as seen in the images above. Known as busking, it is evidently a threat display, mainly shown by males but also females to a small extent.

Eurasian Coot

There were many Coots swimming in Lac de Neuchatel, only these were Eurasian Coots, not American Coots. Even so, they bore a strong resemblance to our common rail. The main difference is the large white forehead. In addition to it being fully white (the American Coot has a red dot at the top of the forehead) it had the look of a flatten piece of play dough stuck to it forehead.

White Wagtail

I eventually learned that there are ferry boats that run from village to village along Lac de Neuchatel all day long. I road on one on my way back from birding on the far side of the lake on Monday before my meetings began.
I took a moment to take a picture of this ferry as I was photographing the White Wagtail below.

It came walking on the rocks along the shore of the lake. I had found a comfortable rock to sit on as I watched birds nearby. This helped make it less leery of me, along with the fact that normal foot traffic made it used to people.
I've found that birds tend to be tamer in areas where people are common and are likely to drop food. These same birds in more isolated areas are much more likely to be scared off by a human.
As its name suggests, it wags its tail often. Another handsome European bird!

Red-crested Pochard

It was strange to see so many new birds. I only saw four birds that I had seen before. Everything else was new. I imagine that it was this fact that made it seem that the birds were more colorful and had more beautiful songs. One of the more striking birds was the Red-crested Pochard seen below.

I saw this duck most everywhere I went. Though it is a member of the Family Anatidae, it shares no genus with any duck I've yet to see nor any duck in North America. While classified a diving duck, it apparently prefers to dabble.

Great Crested Grebe

The walk along the shore of Lac de Neuchatel was great. The community was celebrating the 1000th anniversary of the first found written reference of the lake, in addition it was Easter, a Sunday and a glorious day. There were many birds to be photographed including Mute Swans, Mallards, Eurasian Coots, Red-crested Pochards and these Great Crested Grebes.

I found them among boats that were docked at a mooring. As I was watching one swim about, I discovered another sitting on a nest. While the one stayed on the nest, the other would dive and surface with food which it shared with it's nesting mate. They were gorgeous birds!

European Greenfinch

I've been in Switzerland since Saturday on business. Luckily, I was able to squeeze in some birding as the weather was fabulous and the birds were in glorious song.

I flew into Zurich and then took a train for about two hours to a town named Neuchatel. It is located along Lac de Neuchatel, a huge fresh water lake. The image above is the view out my hotel balcony. This is looking across the narrow part of the lake, so you can get an feel for just how large the lake is.

I arrived around 2:00 PM on Sunday and decided I'd walk down to the lake to help me stay awake, since I had been up for about 21 hours, so I could adjust to the time difference. But before I did that, I noticed that there were a couple of small birds flying around in the tree you can see growing in the outdoor seating area just below my room.

When I got down there, I found a pair of finches. One was bright yellow and the other paler. The paler of the two spent most of its time fetching nesting material while the other, the male, just kinda hung out. :-)

It turns out these were European Greenfinches. Since they were accustomed to people, I was able to get some pretty close pictures although the female didn't sit still for very long.
I've identified just about every bird I saw during the trip and ended up seeing about 25 new life birds. I'm in Atlanta right now waiting for my flight to Portland and since I had a couple of hours I thought I'd get my first post from the trip out. I'll post more of the better pictures in the next few days.