Austria
I spent a couple of nights in Vienna in October 2016. I loved the city, which is now one of my favourites in Europe, but didn’t do much mammal watching.
I did spend a couple of hours in the late afternoon and evening at the Donaupark, near the International City. Brown Hares and Red Squirrels were common here but my main target were Parti-coloured Bats, that are reputedly common in the city in the autumn and possible to identify in flight from the audible calls the males give when they make display flights.
There were swarms of bats at dusk in the park near the lake, comprising at least two species. I am pretty sure I saw some Parti-coloureds, but did not hear any bats calling. I later learned that the males call in display flight near tall buildings rather than parkland.
Community Reports
Slovakia & a little bit of Vienna, 2024: Andreas Jonsson, 1 week & 12 species including Particoloured Bat, Alpine (Tatra) Chamois and European Hamster.
Corfu, Vienna, Bergamo & Hungary, 2023: Bruno Kovács Gómez’s report of a family holiday featuring 13 species in Austria including Common Hamster.
Switzerland-Sweden-Poland Roadtrip, 2022: Lorenz Achtnich’s account of a roadtrip in his campervan through 6 countries with 31 species including – in Austria – Souslik and Common Hamster.
Vienna, Lake Neusiedel and Thaya National Park, 2022: Valentin Moser, 5 days & 22 species including Common Hamster, Hazel Dormouse and Harvest Mouse.
Lake Neusiedl and Vienna, 2021: Ralf Burglin’s report of mammals including European Hamster, Eastern Hedgehog and European Souslik.
Ground Squirrels and Hamsters, 2021: Jurek’s short note about finding the two species.
Vienna and Lake Neusiedl, Austria, 2018: Ingo Weiß, 4 days & 22 species (some of the bats were “bat detected”) including European Polecat, Particoloured Bat, Striped and Pygmy Field Mice.
Vienna, 2018: 3 days & 4 species including European Hamsters and European Sousliks.
Vienna, 2016: Michael Kessler’s notes on some mammals spotted around the city including Black-bellied Hamster, Parti-coloured Bat and Wild Boar.
Also See
Austria in February RFI January 2023
RFI White-breasted Hedgehog near Vienna? July 2021.
Resources
A nice web page about bats in Austria
2 Comments
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benbalmford
Vienna:
I tried at ~6.30am (it was open then) for hamster in Zentralfriedhof in the same place as the previous report – ie in the meadows to the left from entering at Tor 2 – but I only saw red squirrels by the time I gave up at ~8am. My girlfriend had contacted the person who runs this facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/feldhamsterinwien/ and she had agreed to take us out to a different location late afternoon (4.30pm) as this is the best time according to her. She’d like the location to be kept quiet but said that she would be more than happy to give people information/show them around if they contact her through the page – I’d highly recommend doing so as we saw them within about two minutes of arriving, and spent time with at least half a dozen individuals including one which decided to nibble my shoe. We looked for bats, but didn’t hear any audible noises, and didn’t have a bat detector so failed to ID any of them, but this location: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/48.2107267,16.4025221//@48.2116286,16.3959127,16z?hl=en-US had at least two morpho-species as well as being close to the micro-nation of Kugel Mugel which is quite fun.
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Miles Foster
It seems the opening hours of Lainzer Tiergarten have not improved since I worked in Vienna in the mid- to late-1980s. In fact, in those days it was tricky to find out anything about the reserve, even how to get there! However, it was quite easy to see wild boar and some of them were enormous. One of the most memorable wildlife spectacles I have seen was in Austria – sitting at a restaurant beside the Innbrucke in (of course) Innsbruck one summer’s evening. Mayfly were rising and the air was thick with thousands of bats. Generally, I would say that Austria is not great mammal watching country due to intensive farming in the valleys and forestry in the mountains, as well as the natives predilection for shooting and eating everything that moves. But it is still possible to see ibex and chamois and, of course, there is great birding around Neusiedl.