Birding day 1 on Helgoland in early October - some of my favourites, rock pipit, a juvenile gannet, golden plovers, and the many, many goldcrests covering the whole island

Red-throated diver, common and velvet scoters, and barnacle geese from the ferry over to Helgoland - a very good start to the trip, with plenty to see along the way

A grey phalarope on the Inn at the Austrian-German border. Quite a rare bird so far inland and a delight to see feeding on the river

A long-legged buzzard from the south of Germany - still a very rare species in the country, but recently birds are found every year at the end of summer, and into autumn when they often spend longer times at one site

Finally managed to connect with a little crake today in Bavaria on a backwater of the Danube after missing the species three times earlier in the year.

Searching for citril finch and crag martin in the Bavarian Alps turned up something quite nice - a large flock of bee-eaters in a pine forest over 1600 meters elevation. Some even with captured prey and actively hunting!

A big flock of 15 caspian terns on the Swiss side of Lake Konstanz, by far the largest group I have seen in Europe - alongside some other waders, like this greenshank

The first of the glossy ibises in Bavaria from last Friday near Memmingen - over the weekend many more appeared at various sites, some of them still present but quite mobile and wandering around

Some rarities in Bayern from the last few days - avocets, pectoral sandpiper, sanderling and spotted crake

Bluethroat by the Ammersee in Bayern.