Impossible bird quiz

Nice pictures. You must have a good camera. I find even eagles look like spots. only one I could make a stab at was the eagle. unable to see the white tail.
7 Loon?
11 Jaeger? can't see its tail. lumphammer is probably right.
13 Crane? Not sure of which type.
I think all the rest have been Id'd
 
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No 7 was the tufted duck. 8 hasn't been guessed at yet.
11 flies a bit like a shearwater but was seen on the Ijselmeer. Three other species are common in the UK but have a different flight.
13 is indeed a crane or two. Only likely to be the Common Crane in Northern Europe.

I'll let this run overnight and put the answers up tomorrow some time.
 
Here are the answers:
1 Fulmar. Inquisitive birds, I seldom cross the North Sea without a few of them coming to say hello. wings very different to gulls'.
2 Hooded crow. Most of the crows in the Baltic are hooded. They seem tamer than ours and scavenge around habitation like magpies.
3 Skylark we all know.
4 Barn swallow nestlings in part of an old Russian submarine.
5 Greylag geese, the commonest grey goose.
6 Could be marsh tit or willow tit. Any experts? Coal tit has white back of neck.
7 Tufted duck as someone said. No tuft in pic but B&W back typical.
8 Red-breasted merganser. Common around harbours in the Baltic. Possibly the fastest bird in level flight.
9 White-tailed, of fish, eagle. Enormous and dwarfs the hooded crow.(No 10)
11 I thought people would pick this as a tern. It's a Black Tern, which flies low and doesn't seem to hover like our terns.
12 Red-necked grebe. The only one I've seen.
13 Common cranes
14 Male Eider. Usually we only seem to see the females.
15 Wheatear. There should just be enough to identify this.
16 Yellow wagtail. I thought this would be the hardest.
17 Reed Warbler
18 Red-backed Shrike. I saw several this year. Two years ago I saw a reed warbler faollowing one around at a different site, so this may be a common behaviour, or maybe something only local birds do.
 
Thanks very much for the interest and entertainment.

Here's a question for you: I remembered the old/dialect English name wariangle for the shrike and find there is a German equivalent. Do you know if that name applies only to the red-backed?
 
Wariangle, according to my Wiki informant is a word from the Pennines. I gather that it was originally a term for the Great Grey Shrike but got transferred to our native Red-backed. Thanks for making me look it up (no sarcasm intended).

We sailors see a lot of birds and in conditions that land-bound folks don't. I think people are missing much of the interest of a sea-passage if they don't keep their eyes open. I'm not very knowlegable but I like to learn as I go and rely on a good bird book on board.
 
Wariangle, according to my Wiki informant is a word from the Pennines. I gather that it was originally a term for the Great Grey Shrike but got transferred to our native Red-backed. Thanks for making me look it up (no sarcasm intended).

We sailors see a lot of birds and in conditions that land-bound folks don't. I think people are missing much of the interest of a sea-passage if they don't keep their eyes open. I'm not very knowlegable but I like to learn as I go and rely on a good bird book on board.

Thanks. I did check on Wiki but what I saw connected it with the red-backed - perhaps I did not search far enough. One of the things that Mrs H likes about using canoes is the ability to get close to water birds - closer than I liked to a pair of swans with 7 cygnets on the Stour this summer :)
 
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