Wildlife to see in Austria in April
7 spectacles at their peak in Austria in April, and 1 more still going on. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Austria in April in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in April
Frog nights in the Danube floodplain forestTree frog volleys and fire-bellied toads' soft hooting from the oxbows (Altarme), marsh frog laughter, night herons croaking overhead, nightingale and beaver tail-slaps; Danube barges as a slow low bed.
Reedbed dawn on Europe's largest steppe lakeGreat reed warbler's grating song from every reed clump, Savi's reeling, moustached warbler, bittern booming, marsh frogs, spoonbill colony chatter, black-headed gull colonies, the reeds themselves in the morning breeze.
Black grouse leks above the treelineBubbling 'rookooing' and explosive hisses from several cocks on a snow-patched clearing, wing-flutter jumps, ring ouzel and ptarmigan croaks; cowbells arrive later in the season.
Thayatal: river gorge dawn, eagle owl and wildcat countryOak-hornbeam dawn chorus with collared flycatcher, wood warbler, both nightingale species meeting (thrush nightingale reaches here), golden oriole, kingfisher along the meandering Thaya, eagle owl from the gorge cliffs in late winter.
Tree-nesting white stork colony, March floodplainBill-clattering across a colony of 40–50 nests in the oak canopy, chick hissing, black-headed gulls from the oxbows, oriole, nightingale, tree frogs and fire-bellied toads in the flooded meadows, Konik horses.
Rhine delta on Lake Constance: migration and winter raftsDiving-duck rafts and wing-whistle, coot, whooper swans, gull roosts, curlew and godwit on the shallows in autumn; reed warblers and bittern in spring; the lake's fetch.
Great bustard display on the Parndorfer Platte and HanságBustards are near-silent; the payload is the steppe dawn — skylark, corn bunting, quail, lapwing, grey partridge, crane pairs in the Hanság, marsh harrier, and the reed edge of the Neusiedler See a few kilometres away.
Also going on in April
Beavers by boat at dusk, Donau-AuenTail-slaps, gnawing on willow, kits whining in the lodge, surface swims and dives; frogs and night herons; the Danube.