Breskens May-Break

I know it's been a while ago but i still would like to show you all my pictures from Breskens. I went there with my birding mates Bram ubels and Marijn van Oss. The weather was kind a shitty.. so we left earlier than expected but I still had a new species for my Dutchlist: a Tawny pipt. Due to the long lasting showers in the last days we decided to leave Breskens and return home, I think it was a good decision, else we would have been drained by the rain!

CES 2

Today was the second CES day. The weather was fine, with a wind coming from the east.
We caught a total of 44 birds over 16 species, thats not bad for this time of year.

Great sp. Woodpecker 0-1
Willow Warbler     2-1

Chiffchaff              2-5
Blackcap              8-0
Garden Warbler 1-0
Blackbird              2-0
Song Thrush         1-0
Reed Bunting     7-0
Long-tailed tit       0-1
Blue tit                 1-1
Great tit               1-1
Marsh tit              0-1
Dunnock              2-2
Wren                   1-0
Bullfinch             2-0
Short-toed Treecreeper 0-1
Total  30 new 14 recoveries

HOOPOE!

Yesterday I discovered an Eurasian Hoopoe at my own local patch on the Hoog Buurlosche Heide, the "Braamberg''. We first heard the bird singing/calling oep-oep-oep-oep-oep. Wonderful! And then suddenly I saw the bird flying and landing in a birch and it was posing on a brench! What a stunning bird.
Then it flew off in northeasterly direction and dissapeared. While it was on his way again the Hoopoe paused a few times by sitting along the edge of the forest. Afterwards it disappeared.
Listen to the song of a Hoopoe: Song of a Hoopoe
This definitely is one of my best findings in my county!

For the entire count check out http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=277&land=1&site=0&

In the evening we went to a place where Middle-spotted Woodpeckers are currently nesting/displaying. This place is only 20 miles away from our home so it was worth a try! I'll add some photos of the woodpeckers. I even saw the pair of Middle-spotted woodpeckers couple! But I'm sure you have experienced this as well: your autofocus (of the camera)  never works on a critical moment! So I missed the chance of photographing them!
At the Yperenplas near Deventer we also saw eight Summer plumage Little Gulls!

 Middle-spotted Woodpecker at nesting hole

''flavissima'' Yellow wagtail & Red kite

Went to the Rammelwaard near Zutphen on sunday and saw a nice male Flavissima Yellow wagtail and a Red kite (my fourth this year already)

Hoog Buurlosche heide: An interesting site during the evening!

Yesterday I had a good ringing day, I came home around 4 a.m. I was tired (I had to get up at 4.30!) and did not feel like birdwatching anymore. So we had dinner and then my dad said he would go for a check on Hoog Buurlo. I did not feel like going, but in the end I figured that it would be smart to go with him! It has been proven that Hoog Buurlo can be fun at night. Tim de Boer, for example had 8 Cranes two weeks ago, dropping in and (trying) to stay overnight at the Gerritsflesch. (This did not happen however, because of some agressive Greylag Geese!)
So I went with my dad. We arrived there around 18.45. It was a beautiful evening with a clear sky! Nowhere, one could find airplanes in the sky, wonderful. Eventually we did see one airplane however, but this was a Testflight from KLM, making a trip above the Netherlands, to see if the ashclouds had dissapeared. And to check if there was any ash in the motors. Very funny to hear afterwards, the plane you saw was for a testflight. Nevertheless, back to the birds. We went to the old sheep-fold. This was the former sheep-fold on the Heide, but they moved it elswhere. Fortunately there a lot of Rabbits taking care of the grass, so that the meadows will be maintained (for birds' sake ofcourse!) We had 5 Ring Ouzels, all five of them were males, and even some of them were singing quietly. I had never heard a singing Ring Ouzel before, so this was a scoop for me. Furthermore the meadows held 15 Songthrushes, about 10 Mistle Thrushes and some White wagtails. 3 Swallows were flying around as well.

And then suddenly, from out of nowhere, a male Merlin rushed us, chasing the Swallows! A very nice sighting, it was short, but very satisfying.

It is a recordshot.. but you can still identify it as a male Merlin(i cannot say that from my Ospreyshot..) : a small falco, short tail, pointed wings and orange underparts combined with grey upperparts and on black on the outer parts of the wing.

We decided to walk on towards the Braamberg(''blackberry mountain'') to see if we could come across the hunting Merlin again, we didn't but did see another raptor. An Osprey. The bird came from the south and was following the edge of the forests towards the Northeast. This was at 19.33. We can conclude that seeing a migrating Osprey is also possible in the evening!

This is probably the worst shot of an Osprey I ever made..

In addition we had (I presume) a pair of Cuckoos and 4 Snipes.
A succesful evening!

CES 1

It was a beautiful day today!
Today was the first ringing day of the CES season (Constant Effort Site)
We caught an average amount of birds for this decade, a total of 44 birds.
White Wagtail 1-0
Goldfinch 6-0
Chiffchaff 8-2
Willow Warbler 1-0
Long-tailed tit 2-1
Great tit 0-2
Blue tit 1-0
Blackbird 1-0
Song Thrush 3-0
Dunnock 2-1
Robin 1-1
Blackcap 5-1 (control Brussel ring!)
Wren 4-1
Total  35-9

Willow Warbler

 Male Blackbird 2cy, note the unmoulted brown greater coverts

White Wagtail, Male 2cy

Goldfinch male

Long-tailed tit

Patridge & Icelandic Godwit

In the afternoon some good photo oppertunities of both Patridges and Black-tailed Godwits: