Finally a dry morning

The last few days over 160 mm of rain fell here near Apeldoorn.. a tremendous amount of rain. All the farmland was flooded and even today we had plenty of rain, fortunately not in the morning, but in the afternoon. Today we had a new clapnet-species: A Tree Pipit! We trapped two of them. Furthermore we trapped a Kingfisher, the good numbers included 45 Blackcaps, about 10 Robins (very early migrators or local dispersion??) and 15 Chiffchaffs.

Lesser Whitethroat

In the early morning (5 am) the sky was totally clear and there was a soft wind blowing. After sunrise clouds set in and it became very windy and the sky became heavily filled with clouds that didn't look very promising for bird ringing. Nevertheless we trapped the first arriving Blackcaps of the autumn season. 22 were trapped and ringed. Furthermore we caught a couple of other birds such as 4 (new) Robins, 7 Chiffchaffs, 7 Blue tits, 3 Great Tits, 1 Garden Warbler (surpsrisingly only 1) and two Bullfinches and a Chaffinch. The little surprise of the day was a Lesser Whitethroat hanging in the nets, of which we only catch one or two birds a year.

Braamberg, Hoog Buurlosche Heide

De weather forecast for Thursday appeared to be OK so we went to the Braamberg to try our luck with counting birdmigration. Last week Maarten Kaales had an overflying Tawny Pipit at the Braamberg so that was another reason to go to the Braamberg. On Thursday morning however, the wind was SW 4 bft. A little bit too strong.. The skies were filled with thick clouds and there was a lot of moist in the air causing a hazy view.. not optimal for bird watching. We arrived at the Braamberg at 9.00 am and André van Reenen was already present there from 7.15 onwards. He didn't see any specialities but a Greenshank was a ''good'' bird for our migration site since the site is situated in an area with heathland only. The tree pipit were also represented in good numbers, with a total of 21 flying overhead. Furthermore it was very quiet and the weather was not ideal for raptors and storks (no thermal), we did have a migrating Honey Buzzard around 11.35 though.
Nonetheless, with the absence of any rarities, it was a delightful morning at the Braamberg again.

The results can be found here: http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=277&land=1&site=0&taal=2

Cheers!

Bird ringing Castricum 5,6,7 August

Aquatic Warblers

 Ringed Plover       

Greenshank

Green Sandpiper

Tree Pipit

For the totals see: http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=365&site=0&land=1&taal=1&datum=20100807

Poland 18 July- 30 July

The last few weeks were quite busy (going abroad, bird ringing etc) which meant I did not have the time to keep up with the blog. I will update it as soon as possible.
From the 18th of July till the 30th of July I was in Poland with my father, watching birds in the Biebrza and Bialowieza area. Although it was late in the season and plenty of birds were difficult to see we managed to see all the species on the ''wanted'' list. I will just give you a list of the higlights + photos. A trip report will follow later.
So the highlights included:
Aquatic Warblers
Black Storks
Barred Warbler
Common Rosefinch (lifer, hehe) 
Corncrake
Collared Flycatcher
European Roller
Great Snipe (lifer)
Greater spotted eagle (lifer)
Grey-headed Woodpecker
Hazel Grouse (lifer)
Lesser Spotted eagle
Middle spotted woodpeckers
Nutcracker
Ortolan Bunting
Penduline tits
Red-breasted flycatcher 
Three-toed Woodpecker (lifer)
Thrush Nightingale
White-winged black terns 
White backed Woodpecker
+ plenty more, in addition we recorded a total of 151 species in Poland in 2 weeks time.
photos can also be found here: http://observado.org/user/photos/6618