After Metz, we visited Strasbourg for about 24 hours, which was fabulous, but we were in the center of a large city, so I failed to capture any wildlife pictures. 😦 Then we hopped on a train again this morning and took it back south to the Alps, where I have a hope of getting some nice pictures for you tomorrow. Until then, here are a few more sights from Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Mute swans seemed to be pretty common in the area, and at Chillon Castle, this one minding her nest gave us one clue as to why.

I already showed you one rook that we saw on its nest as we walked toward the castle, and here it is again but now getting some attention from her mate as we walked back toward the train station.

The biggest surprise, for me at least, was finding lizards “at the foot of the Alps,” and my sources suggest that this is a common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis). It appears to be quite comfortable in Europe.

In addition to rooks, there are plenty of crows here, as well, specifically carrion crows, and here’s one giving me a forlorn look, for reasons I do not know. “Buck up, Kiddo! You’re living in the Swiss Riviera. That can’t be so bad, can it?”

Finally, in addition to the black-headed gull I already showed you, there were also yellow-legged gulls, and here’s a trio discussing something, maybe the weather, with great enthusiasm. It was a beautiful afternoon.

As I mentioned yesterday, we’re traveling again today, so I won’t have much time to go looking for new wildlife, and let me show you a little more of what I saw yesterday here along the river in Metz, just in case.

There’s a low spillway right in front of our hotel, where I showed you the goslings yesterday, and it was popular with all kinds of birds. Here’s a darling grey wagtail who had been foraging there with her partner.

Meanwhile, here’s a Eurasian kestrel that was hunting overhead. They seem a little more comfortable with the “built environment” than their American counterparts, in my experience.

Back at the spillway, another bird that enjoyed foraging on it was this common moorhen, which I read is just the European version of the common gallinule we just saw in Nicaragua.

The most likely reason the robin I showed you yesterday was posing so nicely for us is that he was busy singing, and here he is mid-chorus.

Now that I’ve delved into second looks, here’s the grey heron before it spotted that fish at the side of the river.

This is not the same blue tit as yesterday, and that’s mostly because they were all too busy foraging to sit still for more than a second.

Finally, since we’re not going to see goslings in Estabrook for a while, here’s one more look at the Egyptian goose goslings on that spillway. In fact, the river is up a bit since yesterday, perhaps due to all the rain we’ve been enjoying, so the spillway is little more than a ripple in the river, and I doubt I’ll even get a glimpse of goslings today.

After a nice, long, and fast train ride through France, we arrived in Metz, on “the banks of the Moselle and the Seille rivers,” yesterday afternoon. Even better, nearly as soon as we checked into our hotel room, I could see goslings out the window! How’s that for a warm welcome?

These happen to be Egyptian goose goslings, which seem to arrive early, long-time readers may recall, and here’s one with Mom, who was keeping a watchful eye on me.

This morning, the rain, which had been falling since we switched trains in Paris yesterday, had finally quit, and I got out for a nice long walk. It was long enough, in fact, that a Eurasian blue tit finally relented and let me sneak a picture.

Similarly, a European robin, which I have been hearing ever since I landed in Geneva, also gave in and even allowed a portrait.

The surprise of the morning was catching a glimpse of this long-tailed tit, who was far too busy foraging for me to slow my shutter down enough for a portrait in the low morning light.

Finally, just as I was nearly back at the hotel and about to go in to join Anne for breakfast, this grey heron snatched its own breakfast right out of the river.

Tomorrow, we’re back on the train again, but I should be able to send you some pictures at some point, so watch this space.

It really is right on the Lake Geneva shoreline, and there were no fires today, thank goodness, but that song is seriously stuck in my head right now.

Since we’re sitting in a train for much of today, here are some pictures from our excursion to the other end of Lake Geneva yesterday afternoon. Nearly as soon as we reached the aforementioned shoreline, look who was there to greet us, the fanciest great cormorant I have yet to see.

From Montreux, we hiked along the water to Chillon Castle, and we walked right under this rook’s actual rookery on the way. Besides the nest in the bottom of the picture, there were about another half dozen in the top of that tree along with about a dozen other rooks.

Closer to the water, here’s a pretty little grey wagtail.

There were a few vineyards that came right down to the path along the water, and they were popular with the common chaffinches, of which here is one.

Finally, here’s a black-headed gull out on the water.

Tomorrow morning, I hope to have a nice outing in or around Metz, so wish me luck!

If you recognized the tufted duck in yesterday’s post and then guessed “Europe,” you were correct! Please wait six to eight weeks for your prize to arrive.

In any case, the particular spot in Europe to which Anne has dragged me this time is Geneva, Switzerland, and I am sad to say that I have yet to see a tufted duck. Instead, check out this handsome drake, my very first red-crested pochard (Netta rufina). Yowzah, eh? There were also a few mallards and a bunch of common mergansers on Lake Geneva, but I was a little surprised that this was the only other “duck” I’ve seen so far.

There was also this one common sandpiper, …

a female blackbird, …

a treecreeper, but I’m not sure yet if it’s of the short-toed or Eurasian variety, …

and a whole bunch of great crested grebes. Long-time readers should recognize these last four from my time in South Holland.

Tomorrow we’ll take the train up to Metz, France to meet some relatives. I’ve never been there, but I bet it’ll be nice, and if I find anything pretty or interesting, I’ll be sure to let you know.

But I do know exactly when I’ll be back again. Anne’s been off with her sister visiting their niece for a week, and when you read this, I’ll be just about there to join them for a few days. Instead of simply saying where, here’s a picture of a duck I hope to see. Can you guess where?

With any luck, I’ll have some current local pictures to show you tomorrow.

Flickr was having problems this afternoon, so if the pictures don’t come through, wait a while and try again later. That’s what I had to do just to get them into this post.

After the crazy warm-up yesterday afternoon, some normality has returned to the weather this morning, but before it did, I got to see our first turtle of the year, this painted turtle sunning itself at the pond. Woo hoo!

This morning was back to cloudy, cool, and windy, however, so here’s a fox sparrow staying out of the wind beside the river. We’ve had one by the pond for much of the winter, but I believe this and a few of its comrades are all new arrivals.

Farther upstream, near the two islands, the belted kingfisher that I’d been hearing and glimpsing for a few weeks finally sat still long enough for a picture. Maybe this time he’ll stick around.

Finally, I’d like to send a special thanks to Gene, who cleaned up and refurbished the wood duck nesting boxes I had collected from the island, back when the pond ice was thick. They had fallen to the ground and weren’t going to do the wood ducks any good. He brought his canoe and a bunch of tools to the pond yesterday afternoon, and we reinstalled the boxes back on the island. Phew! That was a job. Here’s hoping we get some wood duck ducklings on the pond this summer!

I wrote this yesterday morning, but I somehow failed to publish it, and I only just found it now. Ugh!

The first line of thunderstorms has now rolled through, so the fog has thinned out a bit, but boy, it sure was thick earlier this morning.

As luck would have it, our latest visitor chose today to stop in and pay us a visit, but even the thick fog couldn’t hide that fancy pattern on his bill, which marks him as our first ring-necked duck of the year. I see them from time to time in Connecticut, but I’ve only ever seen them twice before in Estabrook, and both times they were hens, so this is our first drake in the park. Woo hoo!

Soon after that, the rain started in earnest, so I hurried home in hopes of getting not much wetter than I already was.

I see that tomorrow is forecast to deliver more of the same, but this gloomy weather can’t last forever, can it?