Review of the year 2012: what remains!

To follow up on my previous post on Israel, now a post including my other personal highlights. Starting with the discovery of the Baird's Sandpiper!

13th of May Bairds Sandpiper

On the 13th of May, this year, my dad and I decided to some birding. It was a nice and sunny day. A Red-throated Pipit had been present near Wageningen. It was a singing bird, showing well on some occasions! A singing Red-throated Pipit is quite an exception so we went there. We didn't have to wait long for the bird to show up. It gave a fantastic show, singing in a tree just a few metres away from us.

Red-throated Pipit (Anthus cervinus), male; singing

After this succes we went to Brummen, where we got lucky ticking a new county species: a Middle-Spotted Woodpecker! A species I'd wanted to see in my county for quite some years now. We still had some time left and went to check the IJssel near Deventer. We said to each other: ''It's May.... one of the best months of the year for rarities.. Why shouldn't it be possible to discover one along the IJssel??'' We paid a visit to the Veenoordkolk where we started a walk around one of the waters. There weren't that many birds around, just the ordinary stuff, but then my dad noticed a sandpiper.. It was a bit distant but with the scope on it I could see the bird well. A weird thing, first thing that came up in my mind was Temminck's Stint. From a distant my dad thought it could be a Sanderling but it wasn't. It also wasn't a Temminck's Stint because it didn't have green legs.. The bird started to walk and we started to see more features. I started writing them down, as I was becoming sure we were looking at something rare! In the mean time my dad had made some decent photos with his camera. With my phone I took a picture of those photos and sent them through on Whatsapp for opinions. I also called Maarten, to help us with the id, since we didn't have any guides with us. In the back of my mind I was thinking of Baird's.. While we were looking at the bird I searched some pictures of Baird's Sandpiper on my phone.. and indeed, 'our' bird looked very much like one! Once we'd gone through all the features with Maarten we were pretty sure it was a Baird's. Soon our reinforcements, Jurgen, Tim and Maarten arrived to confirm the id of the bird. As that was done, and everybody agreed it was a Baird's we alerted all the other twitchers through Dutchbirdalerts, and the fun could start! 

It was a weird experience discovering a 6th record for the Netherlands, first spring record and first inland record, because usual you visit rare birds found by other birdwatchers.. The bird itself may not be that exciting, but the discovery sure was!!

Baird's Sandpiper (Calidris bairdii), adult

Jurgen, Tim, Maarten (reinforcements) and Tammo

20th of June: Manx Shearwater

Laying in the grass in the middle of the night, waiting to hear the first call of a Manxie, waiting for them to come in an be caught! What a moment that was.. Being surrounded by many Manx Shearwaters, shearing low over your head, calling. And ringing those unique, scratching, screaming, fiesty creatures is a thing apart too :) 

One of the fourteen Manx Shearwaters (Puffinus puffinus) we ringed.

26th of July: Houbara Bustard

We'd seen Houbara's already, even flying over the highway just above our car, but the 'real' Houbara moment was still missing. On one evening we went back to the place where we saw them on our first evening on Lanzarote. And with result.. We found 5 Houbara's foraging just next to the road, at close range. We stopped the car just off the road. The first few minutes I wasn't able to get satisfying photos: the adrenaline was going through my entire body!! Only after I'd calmed down a little bit I could start taking acceptable photos. We didn't have all the time of the world, since the place we'd parked the car wasn't the safest in the world... Every time we drove past this location over the next few days, we saw the Houbara's foraging there!

Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata fuerteventurae)

30th of August: Dotterel

It was a day, just in between the introduction week in Wageningen and the introduction of my students union, that I had some free time. And of course there were some exciting birds in my county! Dotterels were around! And I wasn't planning on missing out on them! I went to the Kootwijkerzand where they had been seen the day before. After some intensive searching I suddenly found them (by accident, just scanning on part of the area one last time). For a couple of hours I was just lying next to them, enjoying, studying, photographing the birds. It was great, alone time with Dotterels, can't get enough of them!

Dotterel (Charadrius morinellus), juvenile bird

14th of October: Great Tit invasion

Never will forget the day that we broke the nation record (it was broken a few days later but nevermind haha) of ringed Great Tits.. The tits started their invasion early, with Coal Tits dominating in September and the other two species Blue and Great Tit increasing late September. My trainer, Hans, had already caught many tits in the week preceding the 14th of October. Since we were with enough people we had put more nets on with tapes, still we only had tape of Great Tit on at three nets. Throughout the morning, and part of the afternoon the tits kept coming! Ending the day with 233 Great Tits..!! 

Great Tits (Parus major) everywhere

Not to forget all the other cool birds I saw in the Netherlands this year: Gyr Falcon, Great Yellowlegs, Citrine Wagtail, Wilson's Phalarope, Woodchat Shrike, Steppe Grey Shrike, Olive-backed Pipit and so on..!

Day 7: Quality birding

24th of July:

Photographing a Houbara Bustard was one of our most-wanted wishes for this trip. So we give it a try this morning. We visit the site where we saw the Houbara's our first night. Whilst we are on the way we already see a Houbara Bustard passing the highway, on the plains a few km south of Guatiza! What a start! The bird flies right over our car, fantastic! As on most mornings, there is a good cloud cover, which keeps the heat waves away and provides good light conditions for photographing.

While we're driving on a dirt track I see a large bird circling. As the light is not that good yet, I first think it's a  Raven but it turns out to be a nice female Barbary Falcon! 

As we drive on we suddenly discover a Houbara Bustard walking in front of the car! The bird sees us and walks away but it's not shy and starts foraging at a good range! Our first close encounter!

Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata fuerteventurae)

Next stop is Haría where we visit the cultivated fields south of the village. From Haría we walk a path towards the north (this path eventually goes up into the Barranco). As we'd observed before, there are many Spectacled Warblers around and we are offered some good photo oppertunities:

Spectacled Warblers (Sylvia conspictilla)

We see 5 Fuerteventura Blue Tits. These show really well, just like the warblers:

Fuerteventura Blue Tit (Cyanistes degener)

When we're almost back at the car we see large panic amognst the Feral/Rock Pigeons. It doesn't take long for us to see what's the cause: a (presumably) pair of Barbary Falcons is hunting them! We don't see if they have any succes as they disseappear to the cliffs after a while. 

We drive back through the Barranco the Chafaris again, where we see another 4 Fuerteventura Blue Tits. Also we observe 4 different Eleonora's Falcons at the same spot where we saw the one the day before. They're hunting above a small reservoir of water in a corner of the barranco. They're hunting on dragonflies and showing well. Great raptors! Later on the photos we see that one of the falcon's is ringed, where would this bird come from??

Bad light... 

And in the mean time an Egyptian Vulture passed by:

Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus majorensis)

In the early evening we visit Jameos del Agua. A cave with shallow water. It's a really nice place with the endemic Blind Crabs, that occur in the water in the cave. We see tens of them in the water, really special. A must to visit! A Fuerteventura Blue Tit is observed in the gardens there and over a 1000 Cory's Shearwaters pass by.

 One of the Blind Crabs

Fuerteventura Blue Tit (Cyanistes degener)

A Grey Heron  is observed flying over the highway near Guatiza on our way back.

What what what what a great day!

Day 3: A bright yellow eye looking at you..

20th of July:


My dad and I departed early this morning and headed to the plains of El Jable, west of Teguise. We had our hopes set on Houbara's, Cream-coloured Coursers, Stone Curlews and so on. We arrive at the southern part (just north of the LZ-30) around 7:15 and start to drive the dirt tracks going through the plains. Soon we see two Stone Curlews taking off in a field next to us. A bit further down the track another one appears close to the car, our first close encounter with a Stone Curlew here... and we didn't know yet what had to come! We stop the car and I do some scanning on my right with my binoculars, resulting in the find of 3 Cream-coloured Coursers. That went rather smoothly! The light is bad but I manage to get a recordshot. We were following a track to the west and have now turned right to the north. We drive on till we come upon some kind of farm, with some dirty ponds filled with goat shit, or something similar, haha. We come across many (100+) Lesser Short-toed Larks and Stone Curlews are no unusual appearance anymore with +4 seen here. They are very very cooperative and come very close, despite the very well-pronounced colour of our car: red.

 One of the Cream-coloured Coursers (Cursor cursorius); poor shot

 Stone Curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus insularum)

 Lesser Short-toed Lark (Calandrella rufescens polatzeki); too bad that this bird just posed wrong for us..

Another Lesser Short-toed Lark

After we've had our photographic moment we continued northwards. Not much later we locate a Houbara Bustard to the right of us. The bird shows really well and we have nice views through our scope. We also locate three more Houbara Bustards north-east of there. The location is as follows: coming from Teguise you take the LZ-30 to Mozaga, on the roundabout you take the LZ-402 to Famara. Just afther the KM 2 sign a dirt track goes off the road to the left. Drive 500m and start the scan. From here we had nice views of at least three birds from a reasonable distance. The light was still very good so there were no heatwaves.

 This is where we saw the three Houbara's.

Tammo watching the bustards.

The clouds that were present in the early morning had moved away, and the sun appeared instead. Near the ''farm'' we see our first Hoopoe, Cattle Egret and we discovered a territorial Southern Grey Shrike.

Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis koenigi); the bird shows a three old outer primaries and a few old inner secondaries, all very bleached/worn. I have no experience in ageing them, I'll dig in to that sometime;)

We are back on time in the apartment and have a nice meal at noon. In the afternoon we go to Famara for a hike. 

Risco de Famara

The almost two hour lasting walk brings us along the foot of the cliffs. We see our first Ravens soaring above the cliffs and Tammo gets all the credit for discovering a hunting Egyptian Vulture.

 Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus majorensis); this endemic ssp has a more rufous-tinged colouration making the birds look very ''dirty''.

The family walking down at the foot of the cliffs.

Back at Costa Teguise I see a probable Alpine Swift in the evening. From the driving car is see a large swift flying together with some Plain Swifts, too bad the bird dissappears immediatly. 

Day 1: Hola Lanzarote!

Came back yesterday from a two week trip to Lanzarote with my family. All in all it was a great trip. After visiting two other Canary Islands, Tenerife and La Gomera, back in the summer of 2007, Lanzarote and a one-day trip to Fuerteventura were a nice addition to the list, as these two islands differ completely from Tenerife and La Gomera.

I'm going to write a trip report about what we did everyday, birding stuff and non-birding stuff. Starting with day 1 in this blog post!

18th of July (day 1):


Lanzarote here we come! Our plane departured at 6:40 in the morning from Weeze Airport, just past the border in Germany. This meant we had to get up very early, just like with ringing!

The plane was one time and we arrived at 10:10 (11:10 Dutch time) Arrecife Airport, the capital city of Lanzarote. We picked up our rental car at Goldcar, a well-used red Seat Léon. From Arrecife Airport we drove to Costa Teguise, just north-east of Arrecife. We had hired an apartment there for the two weeks, at the apartment complex El Moline de Guatiza. After some food around noon and a nap in the early afternoon, we headed out in the late afternoon to explore Lanzarote a bit!

From Costa Teguise we drove north in the direction of Guatiza, where we stopped to have a look at all the cactus fields. Here I heard my first Spectacled Warbler of the trip. From Guatiza we drove through Mala to Arrieta. There we took the road to Tabayesco that goes through Barranco the Chafaris and if you keep following this road you end up in Haría. This is what we did. We stopped at Mirador de Haria, from where you have a great overview to the north and to the east:

 View from Mirador de Haria towards the east. An overview over Barranco de Chafaris. The village Tabayesco is at its end, with Arrieta on the top-left end.

Also taken from Mirador de Haría. Here a look towards the north, with Haría in view; probably the greenest village of the island. Palm trees, bushes and nice cultivated fields around it.

From the Mirador some more birds could be added to our list: Canary, few Turtle Doves, Berthelot's Pipit and I almost forgot to mention I saw an Barbary Partridge just outside Tabayesco. From the Mirador we drove further south. We drove back to Costa Teguise via Teguise.

While in the driving car I suddenly discovered 4 Houbara Bustards walking in a lava field next to the road!! I shouted 'Kraagtrappen' outloud and we managed to stop the car at some sort of parking spot. From there we had great views of the birds, albeit a bit distant. We had to look at them with the binoculars as we had left the scope in the apartment. During the observation some birds even did some displaying. Below are some of the 'recordshots' of the birds in the lava field.

 Houbara Bustards (Chlamydotis undulata fuerteventurae)

And another one.

We hadn't expected to bee seeing these bustards so easily! What a great life bird for us! Already on the first day we had one of our target species! While we drove back to Costa Teguise I also saw Southern Grey Shrike and some Kestrels of the ssp dacotiae.

Bienvenidos a Lanzarote!

We're having a great time on Lanzarote! A small posts here, with a few pics. Birding wise it's quite succesful already. Two lifers so far: amazing views of already 8 Houbara Bustards, 2 Eleonora's Falcons. Not many bird species here on Lanzarote, but most of the species you see are special and you are able to get wonderful views of otherwise more difficult species in Europe, such as Stone Curlews and Lesser Short-toed Lark. On the cultural/ non-birding aspect it's enjoyable as well, with a trip to the Timafaya National Park - the place on Lanzarote where the biggest volcano eruptions took place three hundred years ago - that was made today. 

Houbara Bustards (Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae), totally unexpected, four birds were discovered  from a driving car on our day of arrival! What a start!

 Eleonora's Falcon (Falco eleonorae), light morph, this stunner flew past while standing in the harbour of Orzola.

 Stone Curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus), extremely easy to see and photograph on the plains of La Jable.

 Timafaya Parque Nacional

 Another view from Timafaya Parque Nacional

Geiser at Timafaya Parque Nacional