100 years of the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach

At the opening ceremony of the Swiss Ornithological Institute on 6 April 1924, the festive crowd poses in front of the Institute’s observation hut on the southern shore of Lake Sempach. On the far left, Alfred Schifferli sen. and his wife with their two daughters.

SOI founder Alfred Schifferli (sen.) with a tame, hand-reared Eurasian curlew from Wauwilermoos. He used the little free time he had to pursue his hobby – ornithology. In 1902, at the age of 23, he began publishing the bird observations from Lake Sempach.

In spring 1946, the SOI moved to the town hall: here the rooms on the first floor had been specially converted for this purpose, having originally housed an open pergola, the Tuchlaube.

Bird care in around 1950 at Sempach town hall: the offices of the SOI were located here from 1946 to 1955. A nesting box and a stuffed starling in today’s town hall museum are reminders of this period.

Urs Glutz von Blotzheim (seated) took over as editor of the Brutvogelbuch at the end of 1957 aged 25. He mainly worked on the book in his spare time.

In 1959, Indian ornithologist Salim Ali, seen here weighing a bird, invited Alfred Schifferli jun. to train his employees in the catching and ringing of small birds.

Computers were introduced at the SOI in the early 1980s. This workstation was in an attic room that had been converted into an office in 1985.

Numerous SOI staff assembled on the steps leading from the foyer to the garden at the summer party on 1 July 1994, celebrating the inauguration of the lakeside extension.

Radar technology is used in birdlife research, too. Bruno Bruderer, seen here in 1969 at the Super Fledermaus target tracking radar, used radar to study bird migration over the Alps, the Mediterranean, the desert in the Middle East and the Sahara.

Bird ringing has been used as a method of migration research since the beginning of the 20th century. Different sizes of ring are used depending on the bird species.

Originally set up in 1958, the SOI’s hut at Col de Bretolet was replaced with a new one in September 1988. The SOI has been researching the autumn migration of birds across the Alps for 70 years.

Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard at the inauguration of the visitor centre in May 2015. The exhibition Überleben (“Survival”) guides visitors through various aspects of birdlife, from the egg stage and nutrition through to dangers, plumage and migration.

Markus Jenny explains the species recovery concept in Klettgau to senior representatives of a large retail group and the agricultural association IP-Suisse in the early morning of July 2009, pointing out the various typical farmland bird species and plants.

A young golden eagle is measured by David Jenny and Julia Hatzl and fitted with a transmitter. This makes it possible to track the bird’s roaming patterns in the first years of its life and also identify where it settles.

The current directorate of the Swiss Ornithological Institute since 1 July 2022, from left: Gilberto Pasinelli (Director of Science), Peter Knaus (Director of Conservation), Barbara Trösch (Director of Operations) and Matthias Kestenholz (Chair and Director of Public Relations).