December birding: Pygmy Owl & Parrot Crossbills!

Since the beginning of October there has been an unprecedented invasion of Parrot Crossbills in the Netherlands. Many groups of varying sizes were seen throughout the country. In my region the observations were spread rather thinly - there was a group present on NP de Hoge Veluwe but not anywhere else. I tried to see this group once and had birds, just taking off from a pine tree: not a really satisfying observation. Since you have to pay an entrance fee for the park I didn't visit them more often - I wanted to find them myself!

And thus, almost every weekend in November and December I did a lot of cycling through the forests, surrounding Apeldoorn. It wasn't succesfull until last week. My dad found some Parrot Crossbills early December, but we could not relocate this group.

Last Thursday, the second Christmas day, my dad and I did a search for Crossbills again. After a few hours searching we still hadn't seen any Crossbills. When we were close to Kootwijk there was one more place I wanted to check with my dad for Parrot Crossbills: to me this would be the perfect place for them!

Once we arrived there I noticed a Crossbill perched in a pine tree. One look through my binoculars and I knew enough: Parrots! Full of exitement we started taking photos. A bit later the bird flew off with a second one and started foraging in some pine trees further down the path. So there were two birds, a male and a female!

Finally after so many hours of searching I'd found my own!

 Parrot Crossbill (Loxia pytyopsittacus), male (photo taken by me)

Parrot Crossbill (Loxia pytyopsittacus), male and female (both photos taken by Tammo).

Kootwijk - Regelbergen - the pine forests to the right is where I found the Parrot's

Now time for another story:

Since a couple of weeks a Pygmy Owl has been present not far from my house. It had been really hard to find the last few weeks but since last weekend the bird has been observed continuously. Yesterday I visited the bird with my dad, and indeed: we had fantastic views of the bird! My second observation ever of Pygmy Owl and that only 20min from home!

Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum), last photo taken by Tammo

The group of birders at the Pygmy Owl

Lanceolated Warbler! 4th record for the Netherlands!

I was awake in bed early this morning when I suddenly saw my phone lightening up: a call from Bram! ''I think I just caught a Lanceolated Warbler''!!!! Whaaaat? Seriously? He was serious... As soon as I could I alerted my dad and 45 minutes later we arrived at the Ooijse Graaf near Nijmegen.

The 4th Dutch record, the second ''live'' sighting of this species; earlier records were 2002 (one ringed along the Dutch coast), 1958 (found dead), 1912 (found dead). So an extremely rare catch!

 Lanceolated Warbler (Locustella lanceolata), 1st winter

  Lanceolated Warbler (Locustella lanceolata), 1st winter with Grashopper Warbler (Locustella naevia)

 Open wing photo of the Lanceolated Warbler

Many thanks to Bram!!

American Wigeon!

For a couple of weeks now an American Wigeon has been present amongst European Wigeons near Maurik, in Gelderland. I've seen American Wigeon twice in NL, once a bird in Groningen in 2005 and another one in 2008 in Noord-Holland. We've also seen it in North-America. Therefore, we weren't really tempered to twitch this bird, but since it was still present (and since it's a good Gelderland species) we went there to have a look at this bird.

Yesterday it was only present for a short period of time because someone found it was neccesary to cross the fence and approach the Wigeons and flush them, eventhough you can see them at 25m distance from the road...

We were a bit hesitant if it still would be preshnt today but soon we found out! In some sort of by-pass of the river the Rijn the Wigeons were situated. The Wigeons were foraging in this by-pass on very close range. Together with Henri, me and my dad we arrived at the location around 11.45. On my phone I saw it had been seen at 10.40. As we were the only birdwatchers there we started searching for the bird. We found a group of some inactive Wigeons and soon my dad shouted: I think I got it! The bird was sleeping, some 25m away from the car. It was very inactive but every now and then it got its head out.

Several people with dogs passed by, but the Wigeons didn't care, no movement at all. We could even get out of the car and nothing happened. We've rarely had such encounters with waterfowl. Normally the birds fly off immediatly.

Then an hour later orso, the bird became active, and we were able to take some really great shots of the bird! The sun resulted in a bit harsh light for photographing, but you won't hear us complain about the results!

 American Wigeon (Anas americana), adult male

 Eurasian Wigeon (Anas penelope), adult male

Look for the bird!

They were quite close as you can see!

The 'floodgates' situated on the Rijn.

After we had great views on this bird we searched for Black-necked Grebe and Long-tailed Duck that had been seen yesterday, We failed to find them though. A little bit further we a fly-over Waterpipit, a hunting female type Hen Harrier and lots of geese.

We wanted to give the Velvet Scoter near Veenendaal a visit. From Rhenen we drove to Veenendaal. On our way there we stopped near Achterberg where we had two Whooper Swans and 22 Bewick's Swans. Near Veenendaal we soon relocated the Velvet Scoter. It was more distant than the previous time but we had a good look at it. It was succesfully fishing on crayfish. We saw it consuming multiple crayfish over the short period of time we spent there.

What an excellent day to end my one week holiday!

Inland Velvet Scoters

The past week I went to see Velvet Scoters inland at two different locations. First ones were near Zutphen. I spend a few days at my grandparents in Ruurlo and on Tuesday we made a quick visit to these birds. They were present on recreactional lake just south of Zutphen. Good observations through the binoculars, though a bit distant. With my camera I managed to get some record shots.

Velvet Scoters (Melanitta fusca), both 1st winters. 

In Veenendaal, about 10km from Wageningen a first winter male Velvet Scoter has been present for a few weeks now. Yesterday I decided it was time to give it a visit since it was great weather. It is present in a creek just in the urbanised area, swimming in between the Coots and Mallards, a weird experience! There are lots of Red Swamp Crayfish in the creek, so enough reason for the bird to reside at such an odd location for a seabird. 

Velvet Scoter (Melanitta fusca), first winter male

On my way back I came across a group of 48 Bewick's Swans, a nice addition to the list.

Bewick's Swans (Cygnus bewickii). The group existed out of 33 adult and 15 immature birds.

Ducks, ducks, ducks

At the Yperenplas near Wilp some rare ducks for our county have been found a few days ago by Maarten Kaales (totalbirding.blogspot.com). On the big lake there he found a male Ferruginous Duck, a hybrid Ferruginous Duck X Pochard and a female Scaup. A pretty nice assembly in one group of ducks. They were discoveresd on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday I went there with Bram and Tammo. It didn't take long for us to find all three species there. According to Arno ten Hoeve there were even two hybrids present. So perhaps it's a hybrid family: father Ferruginous, mother Pochard and their two kids have visited our county :)

The light was horrible, but despite that I managed to get some recordshots of the ducks.

 Ferrigunous Duck (Aythya nyroca), male

Hybrid Ferrigunous Duck X Pochard (Aythya nyroca X ferina), male

Scaup (Aythya marila), female

Here are some landscape pics:

 Thousands of geese, mainly White-Fronted and Barnacle Geese have been present along the IJssel.

A view on the IJssel with Deventer as its background, flooded land as a result of high water levels (which is common in winter).

Yesterday morning I had two Redpolls spec. foraging together with a Siskin in an alder behind my garden. Everyday several groups of Siskins fly by, maybe some movement!

Review of the year 2012: starting with Israel

As the end of the year closes in it's time to review this year! It's been a great year concerning birds, my two months stay in Israel being the definite highlight! Therefore I will start with a review of the two months Israel, followed by other top birding moments of 2012.

At the end of February I went to Israel to volunteer for 1,5 months at the IBRCE and for a week at the JBO. It was a great experience, learning lots of things about the passerines there - birdspecies I'd never handled before - and next to that, the raptor migration was impressive as well, with thousands of Steppe Buzzards passing by.

To start off with the typical migrants that stop by in Eilat:

 Cretzschmar's Bunting (Emberiza caesia). Many were present during the month March with up to 60+ at Ofira Park on one single occasion. All over the city and the IBRCE this species was seen. Ortolan Buntings arrived later, also passing by in huge numbers.

Rüppell's Warbler (Sylvia rueppelli). We observed and trapped many species of warblers. Rüppell's Warbler being one of my favourites! Over 100 individuals were trapped, an impressive number! This picture was taken in Ofira Park, where they were foraging out in the open. 

Barred Warbler (Sylvia nisoria). This is my other favourite warbler. Such 'bulky', large, sylvias are amazing birds to handle! And look at the eye...

Rufous-bush Robin (Cercotrichas galactotes). These beautiful bush robins arrived late March, early April. Too bad we missed out on the Black Bush Robins this year..

 Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka), adult male

Cyprus Wheatear (Oenanthe cypriaca), adult male

'Vittata' Pied Wheatear (Oenanthe pleschanka), adult male

This spring was marked by an unprecedented influx of Pied and Cyprus Wheatears. They popped up everywhere and some eventually ended up in our mistnets at the IBRCE. Most wheatears were present just behind the IBRCE in the Date palm plantations. Identifying them in the field was quite a challenge, once in the hand it was much easier.. The second (well first one alive) 'vittata' for Israel was found on the 24th of March by two Dutch birders, Marc Guyt and Arjen van Egmond near K20.  It was my first Israeli twitch. It was a very nice bird, and certainly one of the Wheatear highlights for me. 

 Semi-collared Flycatcher (Ficedula semitorquata), male. While I was suffering from sinusitis and lying on my bed with a vast headache the boys woke me up, guess what we have!! They showed a beautiful male Semi-collared Flycatcher. A species that is not caught annually at the IBRCE (unlike this year with more than 10 being trapped). This bird made my sinusitis more bearable for sure... What a stunner! We also saw quite a few at the Date palm plantations behind the IBRCE. Up to 5/6 birds during one single visit.

Caspian Stonechat (Saxicola maurus variegatus). This surprise we found in the mistnet is one hell of a bird too! Nice white rump, T-shaped tail.. you won't get a Caspian better than this!

Crested Honey Buzzard (Pernis ptilorhynchus). Pictured above: the famous female that has been wintering in the Eilat Northern Date Palms for the past few years. The Crested Honey Buzzard was one my wish list, we first saw this female on 8-3, but I got very poor views of the bird, I couldn't tick it yet.. Then the next day we were extremely lucky to see the bird fly in between the two date palms. Normally we were only able to see it glide through the palm tops, having a very short observation. This observation however, was of longer duration! A few weeks later, we had an adult male Crested Honey Buzzard flying over the Southern Date Palms. First we thought it was an Osprey, then a Bonelli's Eagle and then: oh sh*t! Crested Honey Buzzard. Of course one of those moments during which you've left your camera at the ringing station..

Continueing with the Nightjars:

Egyptian Nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius), a memorable night we had in March at Yotvata. We observed several Egyptian Nightjars and were able to ring two of them! Other than the Egyptians the evening trip held lots of Stone Curlews, a Pharoah Eagle Owl, a Barn Owl and Jackals not to forget the Pallid Harrier we saw hunting on hundreds of Short-toed Larks in the evening!

European Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus). On the last day of my stay in Israel we ringed two European Nightjars at the JBO. We'd caught one in Eilat too but catching European Nightjars in the middle of the city of Jerusalem is much more special...

Nubian Nightjar (Caprimulgus nubicus). This was a very special night. After a long drive to the Dead Sea, resulting in, eventually, a broken car, we had a crazy night with first Blue-cheeked Bee-eaters catching insects above our head and then as it started getting dark displaying Nubian Nightjars. To see (and ring) this endangered species was incredible!

Hume's Owl (Strix butleri). Together with Nubian Nightjar, these were my two target species for my trip! Walking in the dark in a deserted wadi, only light coming from the stars and moon and then... a singing Hume's Owl, showing off on a cliff just above our heads!

Scops Owl (Otus scops). Cute little owls, a pleasure to catch!

Common Bee-eater (Merops apiaster). Many Israeli bird ringers won't agree that this is a nice bird to catch, since they can be a plague for farmers and then the ringers have to catch them and take them to some other place! To me it's one of the most beautiful birds to have in hand.

Eurasian Bittern (Botaurus stellaris). When we got the report of a heron sitting in a small pool in one of the big hotels near the North Beach we'd never expected it would be a Eurasian Bittern! The bird was not weak at all, and after release it lingered around the IBRCE for quite some time! It's quite a rare bird in Eilat and its surroundings.

Hoopoe (Upupa epops). It would be a crime to leave out the National bird of Israel, the Hoopoe! 

Fritillaries and a Snake Consuming Raptor!

I had a good sleep-in this morning and woke up around 11:00. You would say that's too late for a real birdwatcher (or birdringer) to do some proper birding but well, I gathered all my courage and decided to cycle 15 km to the National Park Hoge Veluwe. I didn't feel like cycling but it was good weather and a target species was awaiting me!

Yesterday afternoon a Short-toed Eagle had been discovered on the Deelense Veld at the Hoge Veluwe; the same place where I saw the Red-footed Falcons this year. Two Short-toed Eagles were present at the exact same place last year, but for some reason I was being a lazy bastard and didn't see those... However, it is never to late for a rematch! So I had a go for it.

I left our house at 14:00 and around 15:00, 8,20 euro lighter I arrived on the Deelense Veld. I only saw one other birdwatcher present there, Dick van Houwelingen, whom I joined. He said he had seen the bird drop in the heath 10 minutes ago, so all that needed to be done was waiting. It only took 10 minutes before we saw a large raptor circling low, quite distant however, and the heat waves didn't make this any better. We were pretty sure this was the Short-toed Eagle but a better view was needed. As requested, the Short-toed Eagle came our way and as I had cycled towards the bird, the bird flew past, showing really well through my telescope. It did some hunting above the heath, without succes. It disappeared to the North and was out a view for a while. I wanted to do some butterfly watching but a better photo of the Short-toed Eagle was still needed... I waited, and after some time the eagle came into sight again. This time quite close, and with a nice sun shining on the bird. I was only to take some recordshots, but that's good enough for species #210 in my county! It's only my second Short-toed Eagle in the Netherlands, but that's mainly because my dad and I refused to twitch one, haha.

Recordshots of the Short-toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus)

Deelensche Veld, NP Hoge Veluwe; I stood here while observing the Short-toed Eagle

I cycled south to the Eikenhoutbergen where I saw some nice butterflies. Some rare butterfly species occur here on the Hoge Veluwe, that are almost impossible to see outside this National Park. I found the ones I was looking for quickly:

 Heath Fritillary/Bosparelmoervlinder; quite a few seen

Dark-Green Fritillary/Grote Parelmoervlinder; difficult to capture on photo as these were flying all the time

There were also some other butterflies to be found:

Small Copper/Kleine Vuurvlinder

Grayling/Heivlinder

After some more skipper checking I believe both are Large Skippers/Groot Dikkopje

On my way back to home I was cycling through the woods and as I stopped to drink some water I saw something running next to the cycling path: a young Meadow Pipit! What the hell was it doing here all alone? It must have walked away from its nest.. Anyway, I did a good deed and brought the bird back to the heath where it -hopefully- will be reunited with its parents, as I put it on the ground it started feeding, so there is hope!

Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis), not yet able to fly..