On the river, in the forest and in the field, spring has long since begun for nature. The first birds will soon breed.
Published: 02/21/2021, 6:30 pm—
–Ornithologist Stefan Wassmer points his binoculars at a mountain stilt on the Töss near Wülflingen.
Photo: Madeleine Schoder
Brigitte Hofmann and Stefan Wassmer see and hear spring everywhere. Anyone who is out and about with the conservationists sees and hears it: the “zizizizjazjazoritiu-zip” of the chaffinch, the most common bird in Switzerland. The song of Kleiber, performed in loud stanzas, climbing upside down. And the clinking and trilling of the robin occupying its territory and wooing a bride.
–The mountain wagtail also lives in the Swiss Plateau when the waters are clean and close to nature.
Foto: Stefan Wassmer
Two dippers have already found each other. Below the weir in the Hard in Wülflingen, they jump from stone to stone and dive into the Töss. “They have an advantage because they feed on insects that live at the bottom of the river,” says ornithologist Wassmer. If it stays that warm, the couple will soon begin to breed, under a tuft of grass or, even better, hidden behind a waterfall.
