20 Feb 25 - Luxembourg: Craning My Neck

I had enjoyed Birding for most of the morning at the impressive Haff Reimich reserve in Southern Luxembourg. It was time to move on and next on the plan was to drive forty miles to have a look around the City of Luxembourg. Having arrived in the darkness, this would be my first chance to get a look at the country. However, it worked out that I ended up driving a few extra miles thanks to avian distractions on the way.

My first look at the different house building styles in the nearby town of Reimich

There was more general-rolling countryside, away from the steep vineyard-covered hills near the River Moselle

A lot of the trees had Mistletoe growing in them: When I was cropping this photo, I also found a Mistle Thrush in the photo that I hadn't seen when I took the photo. Apparently, they regularly feed on the Mistletoe berries

An impressive town church

This looked to be the town offices

Another urban view

As I was driving towards the City of Luxembourg, I saw a large flock of a thousand or so Cranes flying over the road in the Easterly direction. I could see another distant party of another five hundred Cranes. I tried to follow these flocks, hoping that this was a local movement and they would come down into fields within a mile or two to feed. After about six miles of driving, it was clear that the Cranes were on the move and also they were moving away from the direction the road was going. It was time to turn around and head back towards the City. At this point, I continued to encounter more flocks of several hundred Cranes moving in the same direction. By the time, I had reached the City, I had counted around four thousand, three hundred Cranes.

Crane: Part of a flock of Cranes

Crane: A swirl of Cranes, before they carried on moving East again

Up to this date, in all my Birding in the UK, Morocco, Ethiopia, India and Finland, I've only seen around four hundred and fifty Cranes. Therefore, in the course of an hour, I had seen about ten times as many Cranes as I had ever seen.

A small part of another Crane flock

Crane: Finally, I ran into a lower flock of Cranes and a small patch of blue sky

Crane diversions over, eventually I reached the City of Luxembourg. There were some impressive old walls and some spectacular buildings. However, I only found one place where I could pull over to take some scenic photos of the city.

Some of the old walls on the edge of the city

An impressive double-decker train

A view toward the city centre

The spire of the Church of Saint Michel's: This is on the oldest Catholic site in the city

The spires of the Notre Dame Cathedral

One of the city trams: The bus was held at traffic lights to give way to the tram

It was time to start the drive towards the French coast. However, it was only a twenty mile diversion from the route to reach the town of Bastogne. This is the site of Hitler's last failed gamble to stop the Allied advance towards Berlin: which is best known as the Battle of the Bulge. This was a good excuse for another WW2 historical side trip. After crossing the Luxembourg-Belgium border, I encountered another four hundred and fifty Cranes heading East.