Winter keeps getting better and better: White-billed Diver!!

We've had an unbelievable good winter for rare birds in The Netherlands so far, it's crazy. Today I saw my 4th lifer of the year already... Two-barred Crossbill, Brown Shrike, Caspian Plover (last Saturday) and now White-billed Diver. Incredible!

Just take a look at this list of (really) rare birds present in NL right now:

A printscreen of yesterday's homepage

Yesterday a White-billed Diver (or Yellow-billed Loon) had been found on the Rhederlaag, a recreational lake near Arnhem. It's a good place for seabirds. I've seen Velvet Scoter and Long tailed Duck there for example. And now this place strikes again, but this time with a real badass bird!

The bird was discovered late in the afternoon and we weren't able to twitch it, so we went this morning. Together with my dad and Tommy we arrived there at 9.40. Luckily for us (and lots of other people), the bird was still there and showed really well.

We first saw the bird at quite close range (~150m). Not much later the bird swam towards the sun, bad light, and the bird was swimming further and further away. We tried from the other side of the lake where we had good views, but more distant than before (~500-600m). The light was perfect, so that made up for the distance.

Tammo got a recordshot of the first moments:

White-billed Diver (Gavia adamsii), first winter; what an enormous, massive bill,

As Tommy and I had to go to the uni we took off. Hopefully the bird will stay longer so we can visit it again:)

By the way, here: http://waarneming.nl/soort/photos/812?from=2014-01-27&to=2014-01-27 are already lots of other good pics of the bird. Check it out whilst I'm still enjoying this lifer from behind my laptop!

Can there be a better start of the year than this?

The 1st of January, birding wise, was an excellent beginning of the year 2014. The previous day two Two-barred Crossbills had been found in the forests near Maarn. The following day, whilst we were hiking on the Hoog Buurlosche Heide I saw an alert that the birds had been seen again. When got home around 12:00 my dad and I soon got into the car and drove up there.

We had to wait for an hour orso, but then suddenly an adult male Two-barred Crossbill landed in the top of larch together with some other crossbills, showing well for ca. 1 minute. We didn't get to enjoy our lifer for very long as the group took off again! Then a few moments later I discovered the second bird: an adult female, foraging on larch cones deeper in the bunch of larch trees. This bird also showed well for a short period of time and then took off as well! We didn't have the time to take photos but we were happy with wanted species!

Today, the 2nd of January we headed back to the Pygmy Owl again. The bird sat closer than the previous time and allowed is to take great photos! Other species observed today: a Great Grey Shrike, some Crossbills, Green Woodpecker and some other species that were new for the year 2014.

Eurasian Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum), the last two photos taken when it was almost dark!

''Just an afternoon twitch''

A Steppe Grey Shrike has been present on Texel since Saturday. In the weekend I didn't have the time to twitch it, but because it's such a rare bird, I couldn't resist to go there. With two friends from my study we made the plan to go yesterday!

After we'd had our math lesson in the morning we got on the bus and there we went. After a 2:50 hour lasting train ride to Den-Helder, arriving there 13:45, we got on the ferry of 14:30. Everything went smooth and just before we entered the harbor of Texel we had a nice fly-by of a Woodcock, barely managing not to drown in the water.

Around 14:50 we had finally entered the island. We rented a bike and off we went. The place where the bird had been seen was quite close to the harbour, so it took us only 10 minutes to get there.

As we arrived, the bird was in view immediately! Awesome! It did some foraging on the field, sitting on some small poles and it sat perched in a bush. We only had our binoculars with us, but we could watch through someone else's scope, but that was not really needed since the bird showed at 5-10 metres distance, haha.

The bird is 1cy bird, amongst others, it has moulted 1 of its primaries, and about half of its greater coverts are moulted, it shows a really clear moult limit!

We enjoyed the bird and took some Iphone-scoped photos, with a very pleasing result.

Steppe Grey Shrike (Lanius pallidirostris), 1cy iPhone-scoped

Tommy and Koen at the twitch

Enjoying the bird for one hour or so - seeing it catch a mouse - we decided to check some other birding places too. We wanted to look for the reported Black Stork just north-east of the harbour. It was a pity that we weren't able to find it, but we saw 100s of Fieldfares, Blackbirds and Redwings, together with some 60 Snipes and a late Barn Swallow!

And then at last, a long trip home was awaiting us again! 

Bienvenidos a Lanzarote!

We're having a great time on Lanzarote! A small posts here, with a few pics. Birding wise it's quite succesful already. Two lifers so far: amazing views of already 8 Houbara Bustards, 2 Eleonora's Falcons. Not many bird species here on Lanzarote, but most of the species you see are special and you are able to get wonderful views of otherwise more difficult species in Europe, such as Stone Curlews and Lesser Short-toed Lark. On the cultural/ non-birding aspect it's enjoyable as well, with a trip to the Timafaya National Park - the place on Lanzarote where the biggest volcano eruptions took place three hundred years ago - that was made today. 

Houbara Bustards (Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae), totally unexpected, four birds were discovered  from a driving car on our day of arrival! What a start!

 Eleonora's Falcon (Falco eleonorae), light morph, this stunner flew past while standing in the harbour of Orzola.

 Stone Curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus), extremely easy to see and photograph on the plains of La Jable.

 Timafaya Parque Nacional

 Another view from Timafaya Parque Nacional

Geiser at Timafaya Parque Nacional