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Austria

Rock Thrush Monticola saxatilis ŠIgnaas Robbe http://www.eyesonsky.com

Austria`s amazing variety of habitat types makes it an ideal place for birding. From the steppe landscape in the East with its Great Bustard Otis tarda through the remnant moors with their Curlew Numenius arquata to the high altitudes of the Alps with their Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetus, there are breathtaking birds galore.

In spite of the fact that you can travel through all of these habitats by train in four hours, birdwatching is not the Volkssport or national pastime that it is in the UK. This is not to say that the Austrians do not love the outdoors. They do, but they often speed through it schussing down the Alps on their skis in the winter, running up the mountains in their hiking boots or even trainers in the autumn or trying to outrun each other on their mountain bikes in the spring and summer.

About the only place you`ll find them stopping to look at the natural world around them is around Lake Neusiedl and the smaller intermittent salt lakes of the Seewinkel area. Here you`ll meet droves of birdwatchers peering through their spotting scopes, but ever on the lookout for cyclists and horse-drawn carriages full of wine-drinking revellers competing for the same trails and the same breathtaking views.

Elsewhere in the country if you`re caught with a pair of binoculars, you will most likely be mistaken for a hunter or forester. It is for them that the famous Swarovski company, located in the Austrian province of Tyrol, first started making their excellent field glasses. As an indication that birdwatching is a growing sport, Swarovski now have several models specifically for birdwatchers, although I suspect most of these are exported to other countries such as the UK and US.

If you have any questions on birding in Austria, Robbin Knapp (email address below) who will try to help.

contributor

Robbin D. Knapp
robb@robbsbooks.com

numbers

Number of bird species:413

useful reading

Analyse der Internationalen Wasservogelz?hlungen (IWC) in ?sterreich 1970-1995 - Trends und Best?nde (Analysis of the international waterbird census (IWC) in Austria 1970-1995 - trends and numbers)

Aubrecht & Winkler. Covers wintering water birds in Austria with detailed maps and therefore complements the previous title fairly well. Most of the text is translated into English but is fairly scientific.

Atlas der Brutv?gel ?sterreichs

Dvorak, Ranner & Berg. Atlas of Austria`s Breeding Birds - Covers all breeding birds in Austria with detailed maps. Bird names and a small summary in English. Not a field guide.

Finding Birds in Eastern Austria

Dave Gosney - Covers only a small part of eastern Austria, but it`s a good start. 13 detailed maps and adequate text. 1994, 21 pages. Online updates available at http://www.birdguides.com

Important Bird Areas in ?sterreich

by Michael Dvorak and Eva Karner - Covers the 58 Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in Austria. German with a 3-page English summary. 1995, 466 pages. Published by BirdLife Austria and the Austrian Ministry of the Environment.

Let`s Look at Eastern Austria

An Ornitholidays Guide, No.3 Similar in size and geographical scope to the Gosney guide, but with much more text and only one map. Includes checklists to birds, butterflies, mammals, and reptiles and amphibians. No date or bibliographical data included in the book. 46 pages.

useful information

Proact

Coordinator: none (why not apply?) see http://www.proact-campaigns.net/coordinators
Members: 2
Join us at http://www.proact-campaigns.net/team

Travel Planner (German)

http://www.reiseplanung.de/ This travel planner of Germany can also be used to plan your route from one place to another in Austria (click on Routenplanung).

Weather in Austria (English)

http://www.wunderground.com/global/OS.html List of Austrian cities with current weather.

clubs

Birdlife Austria - Vorarlberg

http://members.a1.net/birdlifev/
Museumplatz 1/10/8, A-1070 Wien +43 1 523 4651 birdlife@blackbox.net
This atlas contains specifications on all 159 species of breeding bird in the Austrian province of Vorarlberg. For each species the atlas records their distribution, habitat, density, and seasonal occurrence and provides a distribution map. This work is based on an almost 10-year study by our team of several researchers and covers 278 pages.

BirdLife Austria

http://www.birdlife.at/
... ist nicht schwer! Die Fähigkeit der Vögel zu fliegen und ihre schier unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit an Farben und Formen haben die Menschen immer schon fasziniert. Heute ist das Birdwatching oder einfacher gesagt Vogelbeobachten für mehr und mehr Menschen ein faszinierendes Hobby geworden. Buntschillernde Gefieder, halsbrecherische Flugmanöver, eindrucksvolle Balzrituale oder stimmungsvolle Gesänge machen die Vogelwelt zur attraktiven Erlebniswelt...

Club 300 Austria

http://www.club300.at.tf/
Here, you find the actual ranking of Austria`s birders and the latest rarity-news from our country. If you own pictures from Austrian rarities, new or not, or some data of rarity-observations, please send them to us.

Orchis Bureau for Applied Ecology (English)

http://members.telering.at/tb.orchis
We are an enterprise which tries to cover as many disciplines as possible in the fields of nature and the environment

reserves

National Park Neusiedler See

http://www.tourist-net.co.at/natps_1e.htm
This national park on the plains at the heart of Europe - reached from both Austria and Hungary - shows that nature knows no boundaries. Its aim is the long-term preservation of habitats for a wide variety of bird and plant life at the point where the Alps meet the Euro-Asiatic plains. The basis for the Park was created by the inclusion of large privately owned areas of cultivated land...

National Parks

http://www.lebensministerium.at/en/umwelt/
National parks play a special role in the nature conservation policy of Austria. They are not only of importance to Austria, but are also of international relevance. Up to now, five of the ecologically most valuable regions of outstanding scenic beauty have been designated national parks...

Wetlands of International Importance

http://www.ramsar.org
Austria presently has 11 sites designated as Wetlands of International Importance, with a surface area of 117,952 hectares...

trip reports

Travelling Birder
http://www.travellingbirder.com
The Travellingbirder.com birding trip report search engine guides you to 7,000+ birding trip reports on the Internet. You can search for trip reports from a specific country and time of year. Not all these reports are in English. So, if you cant find the trip report you want on this Fatbirder page give them a try!

1999 [June] - Dirk Raes - Neusiedl Lake

http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/tripreports/Neusiedl99.html
Just behind the hotel you can find very nice prairies managed for the benefit of the storks. Ecological friendly mowing, high grass, humid and above all nice birding spots for birds like Nightingale L. megarhynchos...

2001 [Summer] - Birdwatching in Lower Austria - Mike Millar

http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/austria/austria2/austria2001.htm
This summer, 2001, my wife and I went for a week`s holiday in Fuschl, about 45 minutes from Salzburg. The village was very nice and we thoroughly enjoyed our week`s holiday. I had hoped that I would be able to get in some good alpine birdwatching but unfortunately this area proved disappointing...

2003 [April] james Hanlon

http://www.surfbirds.com/mb/trips/austria-jh-0107.html
At the end of 2002 I searched the internet for a contact in Austria after seeing free flights available (pay only tax) on the Ryanair website. I was lucky enough to be contacted by Robb, a birder based in Ebensee, a town in the Austrian Alps, who was extremely helpful and generous in assisting my companion and me on the weekend in the Alps I subsequently booked. In fact, we had a great time, all got on well and Robb invited us back for the Easter period, to stay with him and his family and to look for the rest of the local specialities that had eluded us on the first visit. This was some task, as during the 48 hours we had in and around Ebensee on the first trip, we had only managed to connect with alpine chough, whilst admiring the breathtaking scenery and freezing in the sub-zero temperatures...

2003 [August] Justin Jansen

http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/switzerland/switzerland3/swiz-aug-03.htm
From 1 to 3 August 2003 I undertook a short trip to Switzerland. From the trip a short summary. Without the guiding of my personal Guide (Jan Bisschop) and his site descriptions all this wasn`t possible big thanks to him! Also big thanks to Mathias Ritschard for his help in writing down some sites...

2003 [June] Jeremy Barker & Sandra Göetsch

http://www.surfbirds.com/mb/trips/austria-croat-jb-0703.html
This was a summer tour around Austria, cleaning up a few birds that Sandra particularly wanted to see, then a 10-day trip to Croatia, along the coast, returning inland. Effectively no information was available to us before we visited Croatia, so we missed a lot; however for the Austrian sites we visited we are indebted to Graham Tebb & Georg Juen for their help...

2003 [Summer] Kasper Hendriks & Rob van Bemmelen

http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/poland/eurotour/e-europe-sum-03.htm
July 2003 was the moment for 4 young birders from The Netherlands to do some interesting birding in the eastern part of Europe. The month July is of course not the best time to go birding, because most birds are relatively non-active in summer. But, as all the participants attain some sort of school during the rest of the year, a trip this long in spring was no option. The group departed on Saturday the 28th of June and returned on Sunday the 27th of July 2003...

2004 [May] - Robbin D. Knapp - Northern Austrian Alps

http://www.robbsnet.com/trip_report_1.htm
... On the way back down into the city we saw the first of several Black Redstarts. They are much more common in Austria than Common Redstarts and can be seen in gardens and industrial areas as well as on rocky mountainsides, their original habitat...

2004 [October] - Stephen Burch

http://www.stephenburch.com/trips/vienna/vienna.htm
Another business trip, this time to Vienna gave me the chance to visit the famous Vienna Woods, albeit at not the best time of year. All the summer passerines would be long gone, but the resident woodpeckers included potentially 3 lifers for me, as despite many birding trips to Europe, I had never connected with a non-British woodpecker!

2005 - Roberto Lerco

http://www.robertolerco.com/trip/bayerischer_wald_2005.htm
Il parco piu' famoso della Germania che si estende dal Danubio fino alla Repubblica Ceca e l'Austria. Qui' si trova la piu' grande foresta d'Europa, dove si possono fotografare numerosi animali tra cui il lupo,l'orso,la lince. E' un paradiso per i fotografi naturalisti, in quanto lungo un sentiero di circa 6 Km. si trovano numerosi "gehege" (dal tedesco gehen, andare, muoversi). Il "gehege" e' un territorio molto grande, chiuso, dove gli animali hanno "liberta'" di movimento, potendosi nascondere addirittura a volte per l'intera giornata. Gli uccelli invece sono nelle voliere, anche questi facili da fotografare perche' non ci sono recinti tra loro e le persone...

2005 [May] - Jan Vermeulen

http://www.birdtours.co.uk/tripreports/austria/austria3/aust-hung-may-05.htm
This report covers a visit to Hungary and Austria from 5 15 May 2005. Vital & Riet van Gorp and my girlfriend Willemien van Ginneken accompanied me. Having neglected my Western Palearctic list for the last years I decided to make a visit to Hungary and Austria. In 1986 I visited the well-known Neusiedler See area in eastern Austria...

local guides

Birding Guide - Hans Uhl

http://www.naturundmensch.com
Hans Uhl - uhl@naturundmensch.com - is an ornithologist, naturalist, social worker and meditation guide located in the province of Upper Austria who runs the Office for the Integration of Nature and Man...

Birding Pal

http://www.birdingpal.org/Austria.htm
Local birders willing to show visiting birders around their area...

Sunbird

http://www.sunbirdtours.co.uk/brochure_2003/birds_and/music/austria.html
This twelve-day extravaganza - with its many options in a full, yet relaxed, programme - is ideal both for the ardent birder and music-lover and for anyone with a more casual attitude to leisure activity...

The Travelling Naturalist

http://www.naturalist.co.uk/tours2006/austria.php
We visit the lakes, forests and mountains of wonderful Eastern Austria in spring, at a time when the breeding season is in full swing, and the mountains are in flower, and again in early autumn, with the excitement of passage migrants...

Wings

http://wingsbirds.com/tours/view/42
The holiday begins before any musical counter-attractions with two days devoted to birding to ensure the basis for a good list...

Bird names translation index (English)

http://www.mumm.ac.be/~serge/birds/search_en.html
To help you translate bird names from the native German to English.

Bird.at

http://www.bird.at/
bird.at - the austrian website for birdwatchers and enthusiasts!

Birdnet

http://www.birdnet-cms.de/cms/front_content.php

BLOG - Alpine Birds

http://alpinebirds.blogspot.com/
Dale Forbes is a young fanatic. He loves doing things and finding out about new stuff and spent three years in the Costa Rican rainforest learning about how all the animals (and people) fit together. In the Caribbean, it was whale sharks, corals and other sea creatures. Now that he is in the Alps, he gets to play in the snow, learn a new language and get to experience a whole new cultural heritage. Nature offers up her wonders everywhere we go!

Jackdaw Nest Live - Linz (English)

http://www.linz.at/umwelt/natur/dohlen/ewebkam.htm
These are samples of the best images from our Jackdaw nest site, where we installed a WebCam and live video cameras in 1999 in the city of Linz, the capital of the province of Upper Austria.

Kestrel Nest Live - Linz (English)

http://www.linz.at/umwelt/natur/falken/eindex.htm
These are samples of the best images from our Kestrel eyrie, where we installed a WebCam in 1998 in the city of Linz, the capital of the province of Upper Austria.

Robb: Biology (English)

http://www.geocities.com/biologybooks/biology.htm
Provides bird checklists to some of Austria`s national parks and describes several ornithological projects in Austria - from our own correspondent!

Swarovski Optik

http://www.swarovskioptik.at/
Binoculars, spotting scopes and accessories for birders.One of the most impressive sites I`ve come across slick technology and a well presented message about one of the world`s leading optics producers. I use only Swarovski optics Fatbirder

Vivara Naturschutzprodukte

http://www.vivara.at
Alle Produkte werden speziell auf die Ansprüche wild lebender Kleintiere wie Vögel, Igel oder Fledermäuse hin entwickelt und regelmäßig von Ornithologen und Biologen analysiert und getestet...

artists

Photographer - Rober Kreinz

http://www.photograph-austria.at
Rober Kreinz Nature photography

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