Wednesday, december 23: up north

It was foggy, cold and unpleasant when Rommert, Sietse and I arrived in Kornwerderzand this morning (the day had started well with a Bittern walking on the ice near Gaast, by the way), and to make matters worse all the birds that were still there two days ago seemed to have left. Still lots of Scaups, a Red-throated Diver and the Ruddy Duck were on offer, but there were no signs of the Slavonian- and Red-necked Grebe. We had the choice to continue either further south in the direction of Makkum and Workum, north towards Harlingen or west, following the Afsluitdijk, and chose the latter. And that turned out to be a good decision, because our first stop at Breezanddijk immediately produced two Short-eared Owls. These were already my third and fourth this winter, while in general it costs me a tremendous effort just to find one. Between Breezanddijk and the Monument thousands of Scaups were to be found, and we managed to pick out two Red-necked Grebes, while a Snow Bunting passed overhead. Since we were already in foreign territory (the province of Noord-Holland) and that close to firm land, we decided to continue our way to the always interesting harbor of Den Oever, that hosted a juvenile Shag, a Red-necked Grebe and lots of Ducks, Grebes and Gulls. In the last hour of daylight, we met Luuk, Bertus and Johan near Dijkmanshuizen (Little Egret, Grey Wagtail), and they informed us about a nearby location where Woodcocks showed out in the open. If you read this, thank you for this tip, I've never seen this many Woodcocks on the ground in one day (in 20 minutes, really), a real highlight. Taking pictures is another story... And just when we were about to leave, we received another message from Luuk (thanks again!), telling us that they had found a very showy Jack Snipe in a ditch ten minutes from where were. We turned around, and in fading light we were just in time to admire my second ever "stationary" Jack Snipe (see my story of yesterday!).
All in all not bad at all for a dull and gray December day.

Tuesday, december 22: Jack

Today's plan consisted in finding a Jack Snipe without flushing it. Believe it or not, but in my 32 years of birding I never managed to do so. I've seen lots of them in my life, but always in flight; once I even felt one flying away from underneath my shoe soles. Circumstances today seemed favorable to at least try like I had done lots of fruitless times before.
So after having guided a friend to the railway station of Zuidhorn, Karin and I continued our way back home, hoping to find suitable habitat. And believe it or not, but literally the FIRST half frozen ditch I checked produced a Jack Snipe! What a joke, but what a stunner! It almost felt like a new species to me, to be honest. One disappointment, though, because I found out that I had left my camera at home... I showed Karin the bird (a lifer for her...!), and after 20 seconds it had enough of all the attention and decided to get away.
Later that afternoon I went back with a camera and with Daniel, but no matter how many ditches we checked, there were no more Jack's to be found. As a consolation prize we did see a Woodcock and a fine male Bullfinch.

Monday, december 21: Kornwerderzand

After days of heavy snowfall and freezing wind, today the freezing wind was joined by sun, offering the first birding oportunities in days. So after digging out my car I slipped my way to the destination (thanks to the low velocity I saw a Jack Snipe flying out of a ditch near Enumatil) that today was called Kornwerderzand. In winter (and that is definately what we have now!), this is nearly always a very exciting and promising place, with lots of ducks, gulls and grebes guaranteed. Most of all, the impressive numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers, Common Mergansers, Smews and Greater Scaups are always worth paying a visit and can be called a speciality of this location. And they really didn't dispoint me today. Hundreds of mainly Common Mergansers were joined by tenth of Smews and Red-breasted Mergansers, while on the Wadden Sea-side of the dike, some 300 Greater Scaups were amongst hundreds of Wigeons and Pochards. In this group, one tropical intruder had sneaked its way in: a Ruddy duck seemed to be born in a wrong body (and definately in a wrong continent...).
I spent over an hour on the Wadden-side, which produced 4 Little Gulls (all adults) a nice but distant Red-necked Grebe, while a single Twite almost landed on my shoe before continuing its way to God knows where. Inside the harbour I found the highlight of the day, a beautiful Slavonian Grebe, while a compact, fishing group of over 90 Common Mergansers joined by over 10 Smews was a spectacular sight. Ended my day amongs thousands of Pink-footed Geese, without finding anything noteworthy.
While birding, Marnix called me, telling me the dramatic news about the death of Peter van Wetter, just 42 years old. Peter was a familiar face among the twitchers in the Netherlands. More than once I've joined him on trips throughout the country, while in the last few years I almost exclusively saw him during the searches for Tengmalm's Owls in the forests of "his" province, Drenthe (Peter was one of the founding fathers of the Tengmalm's Owl-Crew). I'll remember him as a very fanatic but always friendly and humoristic person. I want to wish his family and close friends all the best recovering the shock of this great loss.

Sunday, december 13: Sun-day!

Guess what I saw today, and what can be considered a real scarcity these days: the sun! It's been a very long time since I last saw clear blue skies, and Karin and I decided to take advantage of this unique opportunity by visiting one of the places that is beautiful even in winter, Fochteloerveen. 3 Great Grey Shrikes were the orintological highlight, but the weather was an even greater delight. I spent the afternoon with the Gulls at Hoornse Plas, finding a "new" Caspian Gull in the company of the long-staying Yellow-legged Gull and the (probably) intermedius, ringed Norwegian Lesser Black-backed Gull. Pics on my site.

Saturday, december 12: Ameland

What does a birder eager for a day of birding do in december...? It's hard to come up with a decent and satisfying plan these days. Ameland seemed to be the only promesing place, despite the not too favorable circumstances. Rommert, Sander and I spent around 4 hours on the sand dunes, slowely gathering an in the end reasonably good list of species. Highlights were over 600 (mostly) Red-throated Divers, 3 Black-throated Divers, a Red-necked Grebe, an Arctic Skua, 9 Velvet Scoters and 6 Snow Buntings. At Holwerd, a Merlin scared the sh.. out of the Rock Pipits present. Nothing really shocking, but I guess it was the best we could do.

Sunday, december 6: Gulls

For some people, Gulls are the encarnation of birding boredom, for others, including me, they are a very welcome and interesting waste of time during periods of in which nothing really seem to happen and weather is far from favorable for birding. I spent three of the last four evenings at the gull roost at Hoornse Plas. Thursday, to start with, produced 2 Yellow-legged Gulls (the known adult and a beautiful first year bird), 2 Caspian Gulls (both first year birds) along with 2 Great Cormorants (an adult and a juvenile bird). Saturday brought the adult Great Cormorant, the famous and criple Caspian Gull (spends his days at the Fish Market in the city center of Groningen) and probably the same first year Yellow-legged Gull as Thursday. But new and noteworthy were at least 2 adult and 5 first year Lesser Black-backed Gulls, among them one wearing a black Norwegian ring (black J3HH). Some quick research revealed that this bird was born in Tromso, very far up north in Norway (check http://maps.google.nl/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=tromso&sll=63.352129,16.171875&sspn=20.978823,79.013672&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Troms%C3%B8,+Troms,+Noorwegen&ll=69.09994,17.973633&spn=8.255836,39.506836&z=5 ) and therefor belongs to the subspecies intermedius. Sunday produced nothing new, but I really enjoyed the presence of a very tipical argentatus Herring Gull, which most probably has very far north-eastern roots (White Sea?). I had never seen such a dark and outstanding bird before. For pictures of this bird and others (most of them are of very poor quality due to the lack of light), check http://martijnbot.fotopic.net

Sunday, november 29: Baltic Gull

OK, it's time to "get into rings". Today proved that it may pay off, because thanks to knowledge of others, yesterday's ringed Lesser Black-backed was "unmasked" as a Baltic Gull! The bird was again present close to dusk, so I wasn't able to obtain better pictures. That doesn't really matter in this case; the fact that the birds wears a finnish ring says it all. Birding doesn't have to be difficult... The Caspian Gull as well as the adult Yellow-legged Gull were also still there, as was "The Duck", the latter even further away than yesterday. I think it's a Greater Scaup, but I'm still not 100% sure.
Earlier this afternoon, I visited an elderly couple living in Haren. They called me yesterday, because since last wednesday, a strange yellow bird was regularly seen feeding in their garden in the company of Sparrows. Fortunately enough they were able to take some pictures, and the bird turned out to be an escaped Weaver, I think a Village (Black-headed) Weaver. I didn't get to see the bird myself, but I assume it will still be present haunting the neighbourhood. Mothers keep a close eye on your children!
Pics of today's and yesterday's Gulls on my site http://martijnbot.fotopic.net