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
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