Robin Heinen
@robinheinennl
Father of two | Husband | Plant-Insect Ecologist @ TUM | Artificial Light At Night | Editor @ Annals of Applied Biology & Functional Ecology | Reptile & Bird enthusiast
Sampling night 3. A lot more clouds today, and I can already feel the difference it makes compared to yesterday. Way more horseflies also. And midges, didn't see many of those over the past two days to be honest... Glad my body doesn't respond to these bites very much.
Light attraction sampling night 2: go! Already much cooler than yesterday, despite similar daytime temps. More moisture too. 766 ppm CO2, you can tell rightaway why we should not be draining peatlands... 😠
This is going to be a rough night sampling. The weather is great. The temperatures are very doable. It's humid as hell, and the horse flies are already eating me alive. My element is a strange place.
Tonight will be the first in a series of sampling events for a global light attraction study that I partake in. It took me time to get permits done, and given the restricted moon phase windows, I was worried that it wouldn't work out this year. Here we are! Weirdly nervous-excited!
Just framed a bunch of art my son brought back from his first year in primary school. I want these awesome creatures on a wall somewhere 😄.
Two more birds I captured recently. The Common reed warbler was feeling extremely comfortable around me, and I liked the oddness of reed poking through the image. The Spotted flycatcher was a first to photograph (and to be fair, a first to consciously spot one as well). 170+ species this year...
The weather sucked big time yesterday at Chiemsee. Still, I managed to take shots of these two beautiful birds, both of which I had not yet photographed - ferruginous duck and black-necked grebe. Not great shots, but shots nonetheless.
I bought myself a gift of sorts. I have been looking for a book on academic leadership and management for some time. Recently I found out that DHV has exactly that. Great. The only downside is that it's in German. It reduces my reading pace by 90%. So I will be reading this book until I retire.
Balance is kind of their thing, but the moment woodpeckers cannot use their tail properly for support, they always look a bit helpless and dangly on their branches. #LifeInTheBalance #birdoftheday #birds
Even managed to take some snaps of a Spotted flycatcher and a Marsh warbler, both of which I had never photographed.
A day at work: excursions through the Ampertal with my landscape planner students. Quite a beautiful place, and lots of activity, despite the blistering heat.
More #birds from this mornings trip. Great to see so much activity. Many fledglings, many parents feeding. A nice time to go out and take bird pictures.
These Goosanders are creepy as hell #birds. But she seems a great mom...
The reed bed in picture 1 sang Marsh warbler songs, so I am assuming I finally photographed a Marsh warbler. Fairly common and even fairly out in the open I would say, but they are twitchy as hell. #birds. Picture 2 should be a Common reed warbler, dressed up for something extravagant.
Buddy #bird looking scruffy as hell, but I will not ignore its greatness.
Until about a year and a half ago, I had never seen a Fieldfare. Despite being a biologist and often being outside (and working outside), my eyes were closed for birds for longer than I am proud to admit. These days I see them everywhere; how could I overlook these beautiful #birds?
These are not the best pictures, but I was so happy to hear so many Nightingales last week. Lovely #birds. This was the only one I actually saw properly as it was perched in the relative open. It was just after sunset, so light wasn't great...
On our way home from Rhineland Palatinate, we stopped at one of the larger colonies of Bee eaters. These #birds I had seen as literal *blips* in passing, but never properly saw, let alone photographed. Yesterday was awesome. My son said it was kind of like paradise, and he was right!
The herons were lifers for me, and beautiful #birds. This time, we made only a quick stop here, as we were only passing through here. Last time, there were plenty of other cool things to see, including Osprey, Black and Red kites, Western Marsh harrier (pics from March).
Last week I visited Wagbachniederung, quite a fabulous birding spot between Mannheim and Karlsruhe. It is well known for its massive population of Black-headed gulls, and for its breeding population of Purple herons. When I visited here in March, the herons had not returned from winter grounds.