We had a nice train ride to Prague yesterday, a great dinner out, and this morning I got up good-and-early to see what critters might be around. I was happy to find that there is a big park on a hill just to the west of downtown, called Petřín Hill, and similar to the one I found in Ljubljana.

I’ve seen a few great spotted woodpeckers this trip, but this one was so busy searching high and low for something to eat that it hardly paid me no never mind, and I could finally get a picture to show you.

I’ve also glimpsed a couple of Eurasian jays, but this one lingered for just the extra second I needed to sneak this picture through the pine needles.

I’ve shown you a couple of Eurasian green woodpecker pictures before, but I had only heard one so far on this trip, so I was thrilled to find this one posing like a rock star in the sun for me.

Finally, I’ve glimpsed a common redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) or two before, but I’ve never managed to capture an image, so I was especially grateful to this handsome little devil for letting me take his portrait while he sang his morning song.

Now it’s time for dinner, and my traveling companions are waiting for me, so I’ve gotta let you go, but before I do, wish me good luck for tomorrow morning, which will be my last outing before we start our long journey home.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind being on my way home right now, and while we are technically moving in that direction, we’ve got one more stop to make because it would be a crying shame to come all this way and not stop in to visit the “the historical capital of Bohemia,” which my two buddies from Milwaukee have not yet had to pleasure of seeing. Thus, we’ll be catching the train to Prague in a couple of hours, and I won’t have time to look for more Polish wildlife this morning. As luck would have it, however, I’ve still got a few pictures from Germany and London that I never got to show you, so here we go.

In Germany, we stayed in a nice old inn on the outskirts of town, which was surrounded by forests, and we didn’t yet realize that the fuel line in one of the vehicles had developed a leak, so we thought we had plenty of time and planned on a nice leisurely start to the day.

My first momentary poser was this stunning hawfinch, which I’ve only photographed once before, and that was in Riga, Latvia at the end of last summer.

Then this equally gorgeous European goldfinch horned in on the act.

The nicest surprise for me, however, was getting to see my very first mistle thrush (Turdus viscivorus), hopping around on a big lawn just as the description predicts.

Okay. If you are a birding purist, you probably should stop reading now because I’m gonna show a couple more pictures from that menagerie I stumbled upon in St. James’s Park, London.

Here’s a common pochard, of which I did get one poorly-lit picture when I visited the coast in South Holland, so I wasn’t too surprised to find one on a pond in London.

Here’s a red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis), which “breeds on the high arctic tundra … and winters mainly by the Black Sea,” so a long-distance migrant, and London is not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Finally, here’s a black swan (Cygnus atratus), “which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia,” and there’s no way in heck it got to London on its own. Dang.

I’ll be looking for some Czech beauties to show you tomorrow, so wish me luck!

I thought I’d be able to take some nice pictures and post them for you on this trip, as I’ve done on so many trips before, but this trip is unlike any trip I’ve ever taken, and now that we’ve been successful, I can tell you why.

This time, the purpose of the trip has been to drive donated vehicles from London to L’viv Ukraine, which the Ukrainian people will then use to help in their effort to repel the Russian invasion. Given the situation, we all figured that the less we said about it beforehand, the better.

So, since we arrived in London last week, five of my best buddies and I took three days to drive 1200 miles across Europe in three pickups and an SUV, and I just haven’t had much time for anything else.

Now, I know that 400 miles per day might not sound like too much, but there was something every day that soaked up a few extra hours: taking the ferry across the channel, shopping unsuccessfully for a part and eventually just jury-rigging a fuel line repair, crossing the border between Poland and Ukraine, etc., etc.

Anyway, as I mentioned above, we have made it, without any tickets, scratches, or dents, and we are now taking the scenic route home, so I have a hope of finally getting some pictures for you soon.

Thank you for your patience, and Слава Україні!

We had some car trouble today, so arrived at our hotel, in Poland, a good four hours later than planned, and this will not be the post I had hoped to write.

I did see some nice birds in Germany this morning, including a blue tit, which I failed to capture on film, and a lifer, of which I do have pictures, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.

Till then, wish us better luck with the cars!

The first stop of this new adventure is London, and I had some time yesterday afternoon to go out looking for wildlife, as you know I like to do, so here’s a familiar face from my days in South Holland: a European robin.

There are water features here, so we shouldn’t be surprised that I also saw a few Eurasian coots, …

and a grey heron.

This green-winged teal drake is a little bit of a pleasant surprise, however. I did see them in South Holland, but not very often.

There were also a couple of barnacle geese, which I also saw in south Holland, but only once, so real treats.

This next bird threw me for a loop. It’s a great white pelican, and ebird considers them “rare” here, but maybe a few flew in and never left. Right? What a lucky find!

Then it really got weird. Here’s a Hawaiian goose (Branta sandvicensis), which is considered “critically imperiled in United States,” and I highly doubt just flew here.

That’s when I finally saw the signage about the “long tradition of keeping exotic wildfoul that continues to this day.” Thus, seeing these rarities is about the same as seeing lions at the zoo. Dang.

Oh well. They were all fun to see, anyway.

Yes, “travel day” does imply one day, but it’s an overnight flight across a few time zones, so the line gets a little blurry. Then, I didn’t know how long it will take me to find you some new pictures, and I’ve still got some owlet pictures to show you, so here we are.

I saw the owlet off and on during the first half of May, but the next nice picture I got was this one on May 14 when it finally ventured over to our side of the river.

Here it is again, calling for help, or to be fed, or just to hear itself call. You know how kids are…

Here it is again, in almost the same spot on the next day, when the fog had gotten really thick, and it looks like it is getting a talking to.

Finally, here’s one more look, and I haven’t managed to get a picture since. I’ve glimpsed an adult, or maybe even the youngster, flying over the river once or twice, but the trees are so leafed out now, that we might not see them again until the fall. “Be safe out there!”

By now I hope I’ve gotten settled in and will have some new pictures for you tomorrow. Wish me luck!

The next huge surprise came on April 1, when I checked on the owls and was stunned to find a second owlet. Nope, I’m not even pranking you.

Sadly, I never saw the second one again, and I don’t even know how it met its demise. In fact, for a couple of weeks, I couldn’t find any great horned owls at all, and feared the worse, although I was also doing my best to keep my distance and check infrequently.

The good news is that on April 15, I found that the one remaining owlet had fledged, and perhaps that is why I hadn’t been able to find it for a while. What a scraggly mix of baby feathers and flight feathers, eh?

The family eventually returned to the downstream island, where we’ve seen the adult owls many times before, and then I was able to spot the owlet pretty often. In fact, the folks who joined the weekly wildlife walks even got to see it once or twice, although I did swear them to secrecy. Here’s the owlet with a parent on April 21.

Then I went to Arizona to hike the Grand Canyon with my sister.

I did make it into Estabrook Park this morning, and it was a very nice morning, but I didn’t see anything new, so while I’m off on my next boondoggle, let me tell you a little story.

Way back on March 8, when we first saw the screech-owl and the wood ducks, I also showed you this picture of a great horned owl. What I didn’t tell you at the time is that I had gone looking for it on the other side of the river, since I hadn’t seen it on the island in a while. I was a bit surprised that I found it at all, let alone got a nice picture.

Well, I went back on March 12 and found it again, but the big surprise came on March 16, when I showed you this picture in the snow and with the nest cropped out. We’re supposed to protect their privacy when nesting, so as to avoid attracting crowds, and I did my best to keep it under wraps. As you will see, it has fledged a while ago, and I haven’t seen it in a couple of weeks, so I believe it is now safe to share the story.

Then I went to Colorado, to see the pine siskin, and when I came back on March 25, check out the scene that greeted me. Yup, we had a great horned owlet, and since there was no way to crop this picture to protect the innocent, I just had to leave it out of my post. Sorry.

Here’s another view from the same day but a different angle so you can see one of the parents in the nest, too. The owlet appears to be already pretty good sized, so it may have already been hatched in one or more of the previous sightings, but was keeping warm under Mom or Dad’s protective feathers.

Stay tuned for the rest of the story….