The bearded tit

The small birds can be found along rivers, lakes and the Baltic Sea, i.e. not everywhere in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (see excerpt from the Second Breeding Bird Atlas of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern below). They are rarely seen around and in Rostock. All the more surprising that we were able to observe the bird in a nature reserve near the Warnow in 2021.
The male has typical black commas under the eyes, a gray head and brown body plumage, which has white-black stripes on the wings and tail (right in the picture). The female is much less colorful and has no commas under the eyes.
The behavioral patterns of the two animals were very interesting. At the beginning I saw the pair sitting together at the edge of the reeds. In the following weeks, only the male was seen. He regularly came out of the same place in the reed belt, hopped into the tall grass and when he was finished, he flew back over the reed belt. It seems likely that the two were breeding there.