Germany: Birds & Art in Berlin & Brandenburg 9/19/2025-9/28/2025

ebird.org/tripreport/411699

If we’d been looking for sheep or cows or roe deer, we’d have had a great morning already. All of those things—not to mention haystacks, tree stumps, and tractors—look mightily like bustards to the hopeful eye, and those hopes had been dashed again and again as we drove through the fallow fields of the Havelland. Finally we arrived at the observation tower at Buckow, where careful scoping from its rickety heights finally turned up one—two—three—ultimately ten truly great Great Bustards sharing the damp pasture with a wooly flock. The sheep seemed unaware of the privilege, but for us, it was an exciting moment indeed, with a distinct overlay of relief for the leader.

That wonderful morning was typical of the rhythm of our tour, based in the very center of Berlin, the dynamic capital of the world's largest democracy. We began with a lavish breakfast in our comfortable hotel, then were picked up by our minibus at 8:00 for an exploration of the treasures wild and natural of the Brandenburg countryside. Our first morning at the waterfowl paradise of the Strengsee also included a glimpse of the Strohhaus, followed by a stroll through the peaceful grounds of Lehnin monastery, where the stern beauty of the imposing red-brick church was matched by the medieval charm of the enormous granary and the delicate facade of the ancient hospital.

We alternated our excursions into Brandenburg with days in Berlin itself, where we birded the Friedrichshain across the street from our hotel, admired the Brandenburg Gate against a gleaming blue sky, pondered the imponderable at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and visited museums full of famous paintings, priceless liturgical objects, and ancient masterpieces ranging from the Golden Hat to the bust of Nefertiti. One particular highlight came early, when we enjoyed a spectacular meal atop the Reichstagsgebäude, seat of the parliament of a re-united modern Germany.

The farthest-flung of our birding destinations was the Gülper See, a large shallow lake 55 miles northwest of Berlin. The hordes of noisy Graylag Geese provided the sonic backdrop to decent numbers of Bean Geese, Eurasian Wigeon, and Great Crested Grebes, among a great diversity of other birds of lakes and wet meadows. These congregations attract birders of a different sort, too, of course, and as we turned to leave for our traditional eastern German inn, three White-tailed Eagles soared in to seek whom they might devour. These giant birds were in search of sluggish birds, stolid fish, or even carrion, but the juvenile Peregrine Falcon—the first we'd ever recorded on this tour—that flashed through beneath them was hoping (alas, in vain) for livelier prey among the panicked ducks. 

Nearly as breathtaking was the foray of a pair of adult White-taileds on the Kietzer See at Altfriedland (not incidentally, the site of another Cistercian monastery now in red-brick ruin). We were watching an adult Whooper Swan, itself a scarce enough bird at the early date, when two eagles swooped in low, setting the geese and ducks all aflutter, and landed on a small island directly behind the swan. Apparently unsatisfied with whatever they found there, the huge raptors flew together to a perch in a massive distant oak, sullenly looking out over the mouthwatering view below.

The writer of every itinerary, consciously or not, tries hard to save the proverbial best for last. On a trip as rich as this one, the choice is inevitably agonizing, but over the years, we have settled on a last-day combination of the glorious collections on Berlin's Museum Island and the ponds and fields around Linum, famous as the greatest inland concentration of Common Cranes outside of Spain. This year, that plan was even more successful than usual. We followed a morning admiring the fantastic ancient art and artifacts of the Neues Museum with a nice lunch in the reconstructed Berlin palace of the Hohenzollerns, then, after a break for shopping, more museum-going, or just a rest in the hotel, our driver picked us up for the 45-minute drive to Linum on what had become another spectacularly beautiful autumn afternoon.

The Linum fish ponds are among Brandenburg's top birding spots, and our startling discovery of two Pygmy Cormorants showed us once again why. The birds had been present for a couple of days, as local birders told us, and they are no doubt part of the vanguard as this species continues to dramatically increase its range and numbers toward the north and west. 

After catching our breath from that exciting find, we returned to the Kuhhorst road for some crane watching. We had seen good numbers on our trip west, but now a flock of more than 3,000 gathered just across the way from us, feeding, dancing, and loafing as the time to go to roost drew near. We soaked up the sight and the sound (the sound!), then made our way slowly back to the main roads, pausing each time a flock was especially close. By the time we were finished and hastening our way back to a delicious dinner in Berlin's Sony Center, our day's total certainly approached, maybe even exceeded, 10,000 cranes. 

I hope that all of you enjoyed our time together in this famous city and its little-visited rural surroundings. It was a delight not only to gather with so many old friends but to make new ones, too, and I hope we can take to the field again together soon. Safe travels to all,

Rick Wright

A complete list of the birds recorded on our tour can be found at: ebird.org/tripreport/411699.

Description for the next departure of this tour.

Rick Wright's upcoming tour schedule.

ITINERARY:

September 19: departures for Berlin.

September 20: assembly in hotel, followed by dinner at Reichstag.

September 21: breakfast in hotel and 8:00 am walk in the Friedrichshain. Hotel break followed by lunch at Pepe Nero. Forty-five minute break before visit to Alexanderplatz, Marienkirche, Nikolaiviertel; coffee and cake at Am Nußbaum. Dinner at Der alte Fritz to 7:00 pm. 

September 22: breakfast in hotel and 8:00 am departure for Strengsee. Lunch in Groß Kreutz. Strohhaus and Kloster Lehnin. Fifty-minute break at hotel followed by dinner at Pane è Rose  to 7:50 pm.

September 23: breakfast in hotel and 8:30 departure by taxi to Charlottenburg palace gardens. Lunch at Opera italiana followed by visit to Bröhan Museum. Forty-minute break in hotel before dinner.

September 24: breakfast in hotel and 8:10 am departure for Havelland and Buckow, followed by Gülper See. Lunch at Jowwa’s  to 2:50 pm. Ninety-minute hotel break before dinner at Schoenbrunn.

September 25: breakfast in hotel and 9:00 am departure for Brandenburg Gate, Jewish Memorial, Tiergarten. Museum of Decorative Arts. Lunch and snack in café to 12:45 pm. Gemäldegalerie. 2.5-hour hotel break before dinner at Pepe Nero to 7:40 pm. 

September 26: breakfast in hotel and 8:00 am departure for Kloster Altfriedland. Lunch at Schloß Neuhardenberg  and brief walk on palace grounds. Sixty-five-minute hotel break before dinner at Blue Label to 8:00 pm.

September 27: breakfast in hotel and 8:45 am departure for Museumsinsel. Berlin Palace, Berliner Dom, Neues Museum, followed by lunch at Bistro Lebenswelten to 12:20 pm. 2.5-hour break at hotel or shopping before 2:00 pm departure for Kuhhorst and Linum. Forty-minute hotel break before dinner at Sony Center to 9:10 pm. 

September 28: breakfast in hotel. Tour ends.