Counting birds from my garden

2 out of the 4 great white's

Yesterday I got home ill and I decided to relax in the garden, while I was ''chilling'' I decided to do some bird counting. It resulted in some good quality such as 4 Great White egrets, 9 Buzzards, 9 Coal tits, lots of White-fronted and Greylag geese and lots of Meadow Pipits and Chaffinches migrating through. Here you can see the count:

1 out of the 9 Coal tits

Trektelling 29-09  11.15-12.40

Cormorant - Aalscholver 47

Great white egret -Grote zilverreiger 4

Greylag goose -Grauwe gans 73

White fronted geese -Kolgans 56

Sparrowhawk - Sperwer 1

Buzzard - Buizerd 9

Black-headed Gull - Kokmeeuw 13

Skylark - Veldleeuwerik 3

Meadow Pipit - Graspieper 92

White wagtail - Witte kwik 14

Grey wagtail - Grote gele kwikstaart 1

Dunnock - Heggenmus 3

Song thrush - Zanglijster 22

Redwing - Koperwiek 6

Fieldfare - Kramsvogel 1

Coal tit - Zwarte mees 9

Great tit - Koolmees 3

Blue tit - Pimpelmees 6

Starling - Spreeuw 16

Chaffinch - Vink 105

Siskin - Sijs 9

Brambling - Keep 4

Linnet - Kneu 2

Things can break..

Saturday morning was spent ringing again. I was really looking forward to ringing this weekend again because the real meadow pipit migration had started and I was hoping that we would be able to trap some with our clapnet. Also, the coal tits have started to migrate through the netherlands and I thought we had a reasonable chance of catching some. The weather was quite good, a soft wind blowing and a partially covered sky. We had a lure tape of meadow pipit and grey wagtail on at the clapnet, the were plenty of meadow pipits migrating through but they were all too shy for landing. Only a few dropped down but did proceed to the clapnet. So in the early morning probably 300 meadow pipits migrated through but they refused to land on the clapnet. Then around 10pm some meadow pipits came down and 1 landen on the edge of the clapnet. I waited for it to walk on it. Then suddenly a second bird landed on the clapnet and the other bird started to walk. I pulled the cabel connected to the clapnet but nothing happened! Pipits gone and clapnet broken... that was a pity... Fortunately we could fix the cabel provisional and we were still able to trap a meadow pipit and a white wagtail!
Furthermore the morning produced two Jays, a long awaited ''handspecies'' for me as we call it in holland. The next day I could definitively feel that I had never handled one before..!

The wing on the left is from a 1cy bird: it has less than 9 black stripes on the coverts and the stripes are irregular. An adult bird has got >9 stripes on its wing and these stripes are neat and regular.

So in the end we still had a nice ringing day!

Pied Fly & Osprey

Couldn't come up with a better title so here it is: Pied Fly  & Osprey
The numbers of birds we trapped were quite dissappointing but we did catch a nice Pied Flycatcher and when we were finished with ringing we had a nice osprey flying around in the area and cirkling above our heads.

Purple hands

My hands were purple near the end of the day because of all the blackcaps/garden warblers we trapped who just had a lovely meal of berries (elder)!

A few unexpected guests

Saturday morning was a wonderful quiet morning. We trapped lots (nice!) of birds (101 in total):
Blackcap 46
Chiffchaff19
Reed Warbler 6
Blue tit 6
Great tit 7
Robin 8
Grasshopper Warbler 1 (new species for this site!)
Lesser spotted Woodpecker 2 (both in the same net!)
Icterine Warbler 1
+ some more

Where are the ''good'' birds?

Tuesday, the 31st, I was off early so I planned to visit the Hoog Buurlosche heide and the Kootwijkerzand, to search for perhaps a Wryneck, Tawny Pipit or Dotterel. In the previous years (not yet this year) these rarities are sporadically seen here. Last year I had a Wryneck on the 31st of August so I figured that maybe this time I would be lucky as well! Furthermore, Dotterels have occasionally visited our county, on the Kootwijkerzand. The kootwijkerzand consits of huge plains of sand combined with grassy vegetation. When you see the kootwijkerzand you get a déja vu of the plains in Spain, it is almost like a desert, only then situated in the Netherlands! I have seen Dotterels twice there. The first time was on the second of September 2007, my father found a nice first winter bird there. It was not shy at all! I could almost touch it!
See a pic below:

I also had seen 5 adult (2 male, 3 female) Dotterels on the 18th of May 2008 on the Kootwijkerzand, another stunning experience! This was the last time I saw Dotterels in our county. Tawny Pipits are also seen annually on the Kootwijkerzand, I haven't seen one yet there however.
So with this in the back of my mind I went there and had a thorough search for Tawny pipit or Dotterel (and Wryneck). Though I failed to find these specialties unfortunatlely but I had some nice Wheatears, Whinchat, Redstarts, groups of pipits (tree, meadow) and larks (sky, wood), Hobby, but the birds I was looking for were absent!

Hopefully next time I will have more luck!