200th species in the Apeldoorn county!

It's been a while ago since my last post, that was because I just had two very busy weeks with school. Last week I had a testweek and I had to hand in all sorts of things. So it also meant that last two weeks I didn't watch any birds. I watched some birds in our garden though, with yesterday 3 Brambling and 6 Greenfinches present. Yesterday, a Red-necked Grebe had been observed at  Bussloo, a large 'recreation' lake. In the past I've seen 2 Great Northern Divers there, also in May 2008, I saw a Whiskered tern there and now a Red-necked Grebe had been seen, a rarity in our region. Therefore, my father and I went to take a look at Bussloo this morning. We succeeded in finding the Red-necked Grebe. It was not really shy and I could take some photographs. We saw amongst others, 7 Goosanders (2m 5f), 10 Smews (only females) and a second-cy Yellow-legged Gull. Also 35 Tundra Bean Geese were seen, flying overhead. This Red-necked Grebe was my 200th species in my county!

Redpolls again

In the entire December month there was one species which was totally absent/missing: redpoll. This morning I saw them again. While I grabbed my bike (at the garage) I walked behind our back garden and I heard Redpolls, they seemed to be present in the birches. It did not took look before I saw them, and they could clearly be identified as Mealy's. The next thing I saw were two Bullfinches, a male and a female, foraging in a birch tree as well! Yesterday I was still saying: how come that I've never seen Bullfinches near our back garden? And today I saw them, conspiracy.. Anyway, when I got home from school (1st schoolday...) I noticed a Redpoll foraging in the birch tree again. It turned out to be a Lesser Redpoll, see the photos below:

Rough-legged Buzzard!

When the new year starts, the new yearlist starts all over again as well.

My parents planned to go for a walk today but I was hesitating if I should go with them, because I still had some homework to do. In the end I decided to come along, and this was a good decision because there were plenty of birds to be seen along the IJssel. We already saw a Great-grey shrike along our way, perched in a small tree, just a few hundred metres before our destination.We parked our car at the Rammelwaard, near Zuthpen and walked on the dike. I noticed many geese flying by. All probably very happy that they could forage on the unfrozen farmlands again. The first bird I saw was a nice swimming male Goosander. It was not really shy and I could take a few shots.

Then we continued our walk on the dike and we had some wonderful oppertunities to photograph several species of geese:

White-fronted geese

And several Tundra bean Geese

Along with a few Barnacle geese

This was the first time ever, that I saw that many geese passing our heads that closely! Moreover, the bean geese I normally see in our region, are very distant, but these birds today were very close-by!

We also oberved 7 Whooper swans, a 1st winter Goshawk, 2 Great White egrets and the usual winter birds.

When we got back at the car we decided to go to Slot Nijenbeek, because we saw plenty of geese activity there as well. Arriving there, thousands of White-fronts were foraging on some farmland next to the road. I checked the group quickly with my binoculars but could not find anything special, I regretted the fact that we did not bring our telescope. Moments later I suddenly saw a raptor flying at quite a large distance. The first thing I thought was Hen harrier, because of the harrier-like flight. Then I saw a white tail combined with a black terminalband. This could only be one species: Rough-legged buzzard!  It was distant but it was showing quite well. I quickly grabbed my camera to take of few recordshots. The results can be seen below.

This was good start of the new year:

A happy new year

The last day of the year 2010 was spent near Bremen, in Germany. Here near Bremen it seems that all the birds have fled the snow, almost no special birds were seen here.
Today we had a short walk along a river called the Wümme. This river held 12 beautiful Goosanders (probably more) and furthermore a huge flock of ± 200 Redpolls together with 100 Siskins. We were able to have a good look at the group and most Redpolls could be identified as Mealy's. In addition, during this short walk I saw a nice but distant Rough-Legged Buzzard, probably a female or 1st winter bird. At the end of the walk, near our Fehrenwonung, we saw a rushing Merlin, a female bird. I am fascinated by the distinctive shape of these Merlins, very swift-like, with a short tail and rather pointed wings. I really like these tiny raptors.
Well this was my final post for this year. A wonderful year with plenty of good bird species. It was also a good ringing year with a lot of new birds handled!
I wish you all a happy and healthy newyear!

Sparrowhawk!

Christmas means that birdwatching will be very difficult for a 1-2 days, it does not mean however, that you cannot photograph or watch birds during Christmas dinner with your family or whatsoever! That proved to be the case today as well. While drinking coffee with the entire family at my grandparents in the Achterhoek I kept an eye open for the garden of my grandparents. The garden is always filled with Tree sparrows and Greenfinches and the usual garden birds so when I'm there I always keep an eye on the birds. Also during Christmas. While sipping my coffee I suddenly noticed a small raptor landing in a tree in my grandparents' garden: a female Sparrowhawk! Quickly, I grabbed my camera and walked upstairs so that I would have a better sight on the bird. The entire afternoon the Sparrowhawk kept returning to the tree for a couple of times. The result was satisfying! :

Some more fieldfare

Still present, today however, I found out that this one is another individual than the one photgraphed last week! So this means there were/are at least 2 Fieldfares present in our back garden. This bird has got whitish fringes on its tertails and greater coverts, something the other individual lacks, moreover this bird has got a more distinctive grey head.

What a coincidence..!

This morning my father and I had made some plans to check some spots in our county again, along the IJssel, because in this time of  year you really want to spend a lot of time near the IJssel, the beautiful scenery, everything covered in snow, and last but not least: most birds have lost their shyness. Today proved to be another good day for photo oppurtunities! Our startingpoint were, as usual in this time of year, the small streams south of Apeldoorn. Arriving there it seemed that there was nothing interesting present there,  I could only find a single resting Snipe along a stream. Afterwards, we drove back, in the opposite direction, then suddenly my father noticed a Jack Snipe sitting next to our car!

Then, after photographing ''Jack'' we headed to the IJssel. Along the way we had a nice Great White egret which we flushed at another small stream, just a few metres away from the car. Also, we encountered a Snipe very closeby:

While driving to Voorst we kept our eyes open for photographing oppurtunities of ''birds in the snow''. The light conditions were excellent, very soft, diffused light. This gave a unique grey/white colouring. For example these starlings in a birch tree:

Around 12 a.m we arrived at Empe. From Empe we drove to the Rammelwaard. We checked the canals for species such as Goosanders, Smews, Great white egrets, or maybe even Bitterns. 

We found 2 Smews and 1 male Goosander:

Near the Rammelwaard we checked a canal where a Bittern had been seen a few days ago. We did not find the Bittern but we did find its footprints in the snow! In the same (luckily  still open) canal we saw a splendid male Kingfisher (it was alive!) together with a Great White Egret. While walking back to the car, my eye was struck by a large raptor, sitting in a tree, at 500 metres distance. I grabbed my bins and checked the raptor. It seemed very big, but at such a distance it was impossible to identify with only my bins. So I grabbed the telescope and checked the bird through the scope.... it appeared to be a immature White-tailed Eagle!! How awesome. And the funny thing was that only 10 minutes before this discovery I was saying to my  father that it would be nice if this winter a White-tailed Eagle would turn up again in our county, because it had been such a long time ago that we had seen one here!! So what a coincidence that only a 10 minutes later I discover a White-tailed eagle. We quickly made a recordshot:

(Tammo Meijer)

We wanted to approach the bird, so that we could take a look from a closer distance, but that did not happen  because the eagle was rushed by a tractor... It flew away in a Southwesterly direction and it was not to be seen again..

We continued our way north seeing a Hen Harrier, 8 Whooper Swans, an odd Nuthatch foraging on the road:

In addition, we checked some canals north of Twello, resulting in 2 Little Grebes.

All in all, a quality day, with good birds and plenty of photo oppurtunities!!