No doubt we saved the best for last as far as seawatching in 2011 was concerned. A truely fantastic day it was, today in the sand (!) dunes near Buren, Ameland. Nine brave birders took the 7.30 boat, and were richly rewarded from the moment we settled and first watched through our telescopes. I first just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Literally everywhere I looked there were sea birds heading west: Gannets, Divers, Razorbills, Guillemots but most of all Kittiwakes and Northern Fulmars. Before we even realized that something amazing was happening, already thousands of Kittiwakes and hundreds and hundreds of Fulmars (lots of them of the "blue" morph!) had passed and a apparently never ending stream of birds was still continuing its way west. It just seemed like the whole population of Kittiwakes and Fulmars was smashed against the Ameland coast line. Until noon, it was just impossible to count in exact numbers, because birds passed over our heads, over the beach, through the brakers and as far as the eye could reach. The last two or three hour, numbers of birds decreased a little, but it was still well worth staying. When at three o'clock we called it a day (tired, cold and stuffed with sand), we had counted some 15000 Kittiwakes, 3200 Fulmars (almost half ot them of the dark and/or intermediate morph), 1500 Razorbills/Guillemots, and also some quality birds like Puffin (2), Red-necked Grebe (3), Little auk (1), Glaucous Gull (I personally checked all the 8000 large gulls passing overhead, but in a moment of inattention, fortunately someone else noticed this fine 1CY bird), Caspian Gull (6!), Yellow-legged Gull (2), Great Skua (15), Pomarine Skua (16) and Arctic Skua (1).
Check http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=235 for the complete count, and www.pbase.com/martijnbot for some pictures. And check also www.windguru.cz for the wind forecasts for the coming week!
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