Snipe Day!

This morning, before I had to go to work my dad and I checked some streams with flowing water to see if we could find anything exciting. Since everything is frozen checking flowing streams often results in cool things! We had 3 Green Sandpipers, 3 Snipes, 1 Jack Snipe, 1 Woodcock and 1 Grey Wagtail and 1 Little Grebe. We were able to take some good pics of the foraging Jack Snipe and Woodcock. Despite the very cold weather the snipes seemed in good condition, luckily.

 Jack Snipe

Search for it! It tried to 'dissappear' when a jogger passed by.

 Woodcock, foraging along a stream.

The Woodcock took off, and landed closer to the car. (By Tammo Meijer)

You Can't Have All!

Not afraid of the cold, Bram and I made a ringing effort this afternoon at the Ooijse Graaf, near Nijmegen. With a temperature reaching -7 and a strong north-eastern wind blowing it was not a pleasure being outside. We arrived at the Ooijse Graaf around 14.00 and started putting up mistnets. With a drill we made holes in the ice so we could put mistnetpoles in there! As soon as everything was set up we started the cutting of some willows in the reed that had become way to big. Near the mistnets we heard something crouching through the reed. First impression: a Bittern! And we were right. Bram had the brilliant idea of walking towards the bird (this method resulted in a Bittern caught in the Ooijse Graaf two winters ago!), but the idea was not so brilliant now as the bird flew off... away from the nets. Further observations included some Bean Geese, 2 Water Rails and a nice flyby of Woodcock. In a stream we saw a couple of Snipes.

Bram told me there were Water Pipits roosting in the reeds so our objective this afternoon/evening was to catch them! Around 17.30 10 Water Pipits and 15 Yellowhammers dropped in the reed. Not near the tape nor the nets however. Even after a lot of effort from our side we failed to catch anything out of the ordinary..

The list in the end:

Blackbird 1 -
Blue Tit - 3
Dunnock 2 -
Long-tailed Tit - 1
Songthrush - 1
Robin 4 -
Wren - 3

Total 15 birds

Bram admiring a lovely Blue Tit.

 Robin, 2cy

Wren

Long-tailed Tit

 The mistnets in the frozen reedbed

Bittern traces!

Sunset in the Ooijpolder

New county tick!

I had a ringing session in the garden this morning. It was a dissapointing session, with just 3 birds being ringed! The bright sunlight was likely to have spoiled the catch rate this morning.. I ringed 2 Greenfinch and 1 Blackbird, still a bit of quality though :)

In the afternoon my dad and I headed to the IJssel near Deventer to twitch a Red-breasted Merganser that had been discovered at the IJssel yesterday. This species is a very good county species! After a bit of searching we found the bird and it showed very well, cool! Furthermore we saw 17 Whooper Swans, 5 Bewick's Swans, 15 Smews, 30 Goldeneye's and 3 Goosanders. While walking along the edge of the river we flushed a Jack Snipe, briefly showing well!

Female Red-breasted Merganser (by Tammo Meijer)

Jack Snipe (by Tammo Meijer)

Open water close to the road resulted in some close Whoopers!

Fantastic winter ringing!

Today, my dad, Bram and I went ringing at Castricum along the coast. Friday and yesterday they had some impressive numbers due to the snowfall and the frost. We figured today would be a bit 'the day after' but still, you never know it with bird ringing, so we decided to give it a go. With result!

The day started slow, with just a few Skylarks and Starlings being trapped. Missing Lapwing, Wigeons and a Mallard on the clapnet, Gadwall and Curlews landing next to the net we thought it would be going to be a dissappointing day. A typical day on which you miss all!

But then... things started to change after noon. And luckily for us then, it didn't feel like the after anymore. The photos below will explain!

First:

Starling, 2cy male

Skylark

And then, excitement:

Dunlin, adult winter

Dunlin, >2cy, because of the grey coloured scapulars/coverts.

Gulls started to come:

5 Black-headed Gulls were being trapped, one bearing a Helsinki-ring!

A spectacular number of 112 Common Gulls was trapped; 1 bearing a Helsinki-ring and 1 with a Moskva-ring (very very rare!).

We ringed 3 Herring Gulls of which one was of the Scandinavian subspecies argentatus (above)

The primaries of the argentatus (lots of white on P10)

We ringed three Fieldfares.On the above photo: upper one 2cy male, lower one >2cy female; note the rufous-brown greater coverts of the adult in contrast to the greyish-brown greater coverts of the juvenile.

Fieldfare, 2cy male

And in the end, finally after a lot of effort, a Curlew! A 2cy bird.

Such cool feet!

 Tammo

Bram

Me

The nets covered in snow.

In conclusion: we had a fantastic (but freeeezing cold) day!

Ringing update ring-MUS project!

I haven't updated anything about bird ringing lately but this doesn't mean I haven't ringed any birds recently ofcourse! I had three ringing sessions this January, with pretty good results, despite the mild weather. In total I caught 49 birds, of which 36 were new and 13 were recaptures. This is not bad considering I'm catching with just either one 9 metre or one 6 metre net. I broke my daily record last week, with 20 birds caught on one day!

Below you can find the numbers along with some nice pictures (of at least one ringing tick for me!)

18th of January
Time: 8:30 - 13:30
Net: 9 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 1 -
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 4 - 2
Great Tit (Koolmees) - 2
Greenfinch (Groenling) 2 -
House Sparrow (Huismus) 7 -

Total 14 - 4 (18)


24th of January
Time: 8:30 - 14:30
Net: 9 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 2 -
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 7 - 6
Dunnock (Heggenmus) - 1
House Sparrow (Huismus) 3 -
Wood Pigeon (Houtduif) 1 -


Total 13 - 7 (20)

31st of January
Time: 8:30 - 14:30
Net: 6 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 4 - 1
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 1 - 1
Chaffinch (Vink) 1 -
Great Tit (Koolmees) 2 -
Greenfinch (Groenling) 1 -

Total 9 - 2 (11)

The first colourringed House Sparrow of 2012 (18-1)

Greenfinch, >1cy female (18-1)
Weird colouration on the P1, compared to the other primaries (grey vs. yellow). Maybe a lack of pigmentation?

Greenfinch, 2cy female (18-1)

Note the overall brown, especially the GC's and PC's

Greenfinch, 2cy male (31-1)

edit: I just looked at the pictures again, and this if ofcourse not a >2cy bird! Note the moult limit in the tertails and it looks like P1 to P5 are retained juvenile feathers, and so are the secondaries.

Chaffinch, 2cy female (31-1)

Note the moult limit in the GC's (the outer three ones are old).

 The new ringing tick! It was just hanging in the top shelf of the net, very calmly just hanging there. Not until I came to extract it! What a powerful bird! I had a hard time, ringing this bird on my own! It was maybe even more difficult to ring than the Pileated Woodpecker at Powdermill haha.

 I was surprised that it remained really calm while holding the pigeon.

 Note the moult limit in the secondaries and the uniform quality of the primaries. Thanks to Stephen Menzie (a.k.a Wood Pigeon moult expert) for helping with the age of the bird. We aged it as a >4cy.

A 2cy bird would show some really worn brown secondaries, a 3cy would have the middle secondary really worn and brown which this one hasn't. This makes it a >4cy.

Faab holding the pigeon!

One of the best birding days in my life?

- An interruption from the Spain trip report for some variety:) -

Our province Zeeland in winter: definitively thé place to be for watching birds! With my dad and our friend Henri we decided to do a day of birdwatching yesterday - Sunday January 30th -. We had made a planning of what itwere going to do first etc. The alarmclock was set on 5.30, very early during winter time! We picked up Henri at his home around 6.45 and off we went in the complete darkness.

We  headed to the Reeuwijkse Plassen at Reeuwijk in the province of Zuid-Holland first where we would try to see the long-staying White-headed Duck. We arrived at the exact place around 8.00 when it was still a little bit dark but we could already scan the ducks. The first surprise were two Slavonian Grebes that were present among a group of Pochards and Tufted Ducks. This was the group of ducks that often held the White-headed Duck as well so I scanned the group thorougly. No White-headed Duck however. We did find his overseas related brother, a male Ruddy Duck, which is considered to be an escape here. We walked closer to the group as the light was getting better and after scanning the group again I discovered a Ferruginous Duck, a welcome surprise too! It was already 8.45 but still no sign of the White-headed Duck. We slowly walked back to the car, realising we would be dipping this duck that is ALWAYS present in the group of ducks, but not today! Then, as we had arrived at the car, I decided to check the lake once more time, to make sure we had checked it thorougly, and while scanning the water I suddenly found the White-headed Duck, actively foraging and therefore difficult to find! After seeing many tens of these wonderful ducks in Spain less than a month ago it was a pleasure to see one more closeby as well!

Our plan was to wait for the Gyr Falcon to be seen again and then we would drive to the bird, full speed! After we'd seen the White-headed Duck I checked www.dutchbirdalerts.nl on my phone and I saw an alert of the Gyr! We installed the TomTom and the TomTom told us we were 1 hour and 46 minutes (165 km) away from our destination. We drove partially through Belgium to get to the village Zandstraat, just above Sas Van Gent. We arrived at the Van Remoorterepolderstraat at 10.30. There were +15 other birders present as well. Already from the driving car we could distinguish a large raptor sitting on a pylon in the field. As expected this was the falcon. What a fantastic bird! The Gyr Falcon was in the pocket! It was sat in a pylon at 200 metres distance. From the road we had great views of the bird.

In the top of of the pylon: the Gyr Falcon.

The Gyr, digiscoped by Tammo. Too bad of the terrible light conditions..

We could calmly observe the Gyr and all details were visible. We saw the bird tidying its feathers and massive claws, spreading its wings and eventually flying off to another pylon further away. Very satisfied we continued our way towards Axel where a Catlle Egret had been observed for over three months already. When we arrived at the place where it should be - a meadow with horses - it was nowhere to be found. Luckily I knew another place closeby where it had been observed regularly too. Arriving there we soon noticed the Cattle Egret resting in the grass next to a small canal. Soon it started foraging and flew off to some cattle.

Adult winter Cattle Egret

Our next target species was the Greater Yellowlegs, which has been present for over 1,5 years now in the same creek, at Colijnsplaat. Last November we dipped it due to heavy fog so we hoped that we would see it now! We drove through the Westerscheldetunnel via Goes to Colijnsplaat. We stopped on the brigde at the creek and started scanning. Quite soon I found the Greater Yellowlegs foraging on the side of the creek. It was a bit distant but we could distinguish all the features very well. I made a terrible recordshot with my camera that I won't post, haha. Furthermore we saw Snipes, Little Grebes and a Redshank and Henri found a Great-spotted Woodpecker, good for the daily list;) Around 13.45 we left to the Veerse Meer for Great Northern Diver. We scanned the lake from the northern side but didn't find the diver, it turned out it was present more to the south, not visible from where we were standing. Because of a bit of time pressure we decided not to head there but to continue our way north. On the Veerse Meer we did see 40+ Black-necked Grebes.

One of the many Black-necked Grebes present on the lake.

We drove north to Neeltje Jans/Oosterscheldekering, a large complex of floodgates. After a bit of searching we found three Shags, 2 adults and 1 first winter. One of the adults was foraging close to the land which meant we were able to take some good pics. We didn't find the Glaucous Gull that should've been present here. 

The adult Shag. Note the yellow skin near the bill.

Around 15.00 we left Neeltje Jans and proceeded further north. At Schouwen-Duivenland our goal was to see the long-staying Crane. We found it foraging on a cropfield. After a few minutes the bird took off and landed in its favourite cornfield patch. In the same field we saw a hunting Hen Harrier. 

The Crane.

From the Crane we drove to Burghsluis where our mission was to find the two rare species of Brant in between the common Brants. Soon we came upon a small group of 200+ Brants. From the car we scanned the group with our binoculars. After just a few minutes: bingo! 3 Pale-bellied Brants were foraging amongst the other Brants. And then, only a few mintues later, we discovered the 1st winter Black Brant. This was a quick succes!

2 of the 3 Pale-bellied Brants present in this group.

And the 1st winter Black Brant.

A bit further down the road we discovered another Pale-bellied Brant from the driving car! Number 4 of the day. We continued towards the Koudekerksche Inlaag. It was 16.00 already and the light started to decrease.Our chances of seeing a Short-eared Owl increased. And as we hoped, we were rewarded with a great hunting Short-eared Owl! The pictures speak for themselves..

Hunting

With succes!

After this show we drove to the Brouwersdam. On our way we saw a hunting Rough-legged Buzzard from te car. At the Brouwersdam the light was getting bad which meant that our view on the sea wasn't what we hoped for. We hoped to find a Great northern Diver here, but we didn't. We did see 25 Red-throated Divers, hundreds of Black Scoters, hundreds of Red-breasted Mergansers, some Ruddy Turnstones, a Purple Sandpiper and a Bar-tailed Godwit.

Henri and me at the Brouwersdam.

We ended the day with a great Mc Donalds meal!

To recap: our score of rare birds after a full day of birding: Gyr Falcon, Greater Yellowlegs, White-headed Duck, Crane, Cattle Egret, Ferruginous Duck, Shags, Black Brant, Pale-bellied Brants, Rough-legged Buzzards and also Short-eared Owls! So I suppose I can consider this one of my best birding days in Holland?!