These places are perfect for bird watching

They resemble penguins with a funny, colorful beak tied around their necks: puffins, also known as puffins, make everyone smile - and are not only exciting for ornithologists. These birds spend their lives on the open seas of the North Atlantic and Western Arctic Seas.

But from April to July they waddle around on land to raise their chicks in burrows. Then you can observe the piscivores on some islands and coasts, where they form colonies. They show little shyness - if you stand still patiently, they sometimes come very close out of curiosity.

One of the best puffin spots in the world is the island of Skomer, off the Pembrokeshire coast in Wales. The entire island is under nature protection, as is the surrounding sea.

Long known as the largest puffin colony in southern Britain, the number of puffins there has grown to almost 39,000 birds in recent years, the Wildlife Trust South and West Wales reported in 2022. A cause for celebration, especially as the birds are generally drastic dwindling numbers are classified as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List.

In addition, Skomer Island offers many other birdwatching highlights. It is an important breeding ground for the chough and the Atlantic shearwater, with around 100,000 pairs nesting here. Razorbills, guillemots, fulmars, petrels, shags from the cormorant family, wave runners and various birds of prey can be seen here as well as young gray seals, porpoises, dolphins - and the skomer vole, which is only found here in the world.

From April to September excursion boats go to the island. Visitor numbers are limited and online reservations can be booked now through the Welsh Wildlife Trust website (welshwildlife.org/visit/skomer-island).

More information: Visit Wales (visitwales.com)

The city of Cuxhaven is known as a North Sea health resort, but it and the district of the same name on Lower Saxony's North Sea coast also offer excellent birdwatching spots. Because very different landscapes are connected here like in a mosaic: Wadden Sea, coastal heaths, marsh, geest, forests and moors. In a relatively small space you can experience a diverse world of birds - including rare species.

The Unesco World Heritage Wadden Sea alone guarantees wonderful sightings. More than ten million waders and waterfowl find food in the globally important wetland every year. From the Cuxhaven beach you can see all three German Wadden Sea National Parks: Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein (on the other side of the Elbe) and Hamburg Wadden Sea.

The latter includes the islands of Neuwerk, which can be reached from Cuxhaven on foot or by horse-drawn carriage through the mud flats at low tide, Scharhörn and Nigehern, which was created in 1989 as a bird island - a protected breeding and resting place that people are not allowed to enter .

The dainty sanderlings and turnstones are not shy and can be observed on a walk along the beach in Cuxhaven-Duhnen even without binoculars. They tip around here as winter guests from the north until spring.

Bird migration is spectacular in spring and autumn, when huge flocks of barnacle geese, gray geese, and pale-fronted geese, golden plovers, lapwings, oystercatchers and widgeons rest or stay in the district. It is one of the most important breeding areas for meadow birds, including species that have become very rare here, such as black-tailed godwit and snipe. As a freshwater river, the Elbe, which flows into the North Sea in Cuxhaven, offers further advantages for birds and bird fans.

Don't miss the Duhner Heide viewing platform and the Unesco World Heritage Wadden Sea Visitor Center in Cuxhaven. The excellently made exhibition provides information, for example, about shelducks, knots, avocets, curlews, dunlins, redshanks and greenshanks, but also about massive bison that graze in Cuxhaven's coastal heaths and wolves that have been sighted here.

Ornithological tours lead from the Wadden Sea visitor center to the mud flats, to the salt marshes - and to the Cuxhaven coastal heaths nature reserve with the Geest cliff, heathland moors, sand dunes and forests. More than 200 endangered animal and plant species live in the largest contiguous heath area on the mainland of the German North Sea coast, including bird watcher highlights such as wheatears, nightjars, partridges, stonechats and whinchats.

There are extra tours for the migratory bird days in autumn and birdwatchers can take part in the aviathlon. In this competition among Lower Saxony's islands and coastal regions, the places with the most counted bird species win. Cuxhaven has won the mainland award several times.

More information: cuxhaven.de

Up to 20,000 bird lovers make the pilgrimage to Andalusia every year with binoculars and spotting scopes. Your destination: the viewpoints on the coast of Tarifa, the southernmost city and mainland point of Europe on the Strait of Gibraltar. It's known as a hotspot for surfers, but birdwatchers know it's an ideal place to experience the legendary migration of raptors and bee-eaters.

Up to 30 million migratory birds cross the strait between the continents here in spring and autumn. At the Punta Camorro observation point near Tarifa, for example, you can see the shortest distance between Africa and Europe – it is only 14.2 kilometers. Many birds of prey, which depend on favorable wind conditions, use the strait to dare the dangerous flight over the water. When the weather is unfavorable, they wait for the best time, then take off all at once – and sometimes crash into the sea.

Most impressive are the black kite and short-toed eagle crossings, many hundreds of which can be seen in a day. But also the migration of the well-known white stork and the colorful bee-eater. Because not only birds of prey use the strait.

Here you can see more than 200 species - including one of the rarest and most bizarre birds: the northern bald ibis, a European bald ibis with a feather mane. In addition the Audouin's Gull, the Balearic Shearwater, the Arctic Skua. And of course griffins such as sparrowhawks, goshawks, the pretty lesser kestrel and various species of eagles and vultures.

In autumn the crowds are more spectacular, but in spring you can often see the birds of prey that sail from Africa to Europe better. For example, flocks of booted eagles circling low and using the thermals to then soar and soar to Spain.

Special providers such as Birdingtours, Spain Naturreisen and Albatros-Tours offer German-speaking bird migration trips to Andalusia, some with extras such as detours to other birdwatching regions or whale watching trips. Tours in English where you can meet bird enthusiasts from all over the world are available through Birdwatching Spain, Wild Andalusia, Aviantours and Inglorious Bustards.

With geese over Lac d'Annecy in the French Alps, an unusual microlight excursion.

Source: WORLD / Kevin Knauer