Ignored by Waders

Have you ever felt ignored by birds? Well I have! Last week when I was strolling along a shoreline of a large recreational lake a small group of waders, excisting out of 2 Ruff and 4 Dunlin landed in front of me and started foraging along the shore. I looked for tactical place and positioned myself there. Slowly they started foraging towards me as if I wasn't there. It was really great! Curious birds that didn't care of my presence. In harsh/cold conditions I can imagine that birds will be tame but not when the weather is just standard.

Below the result of my small fotoshoot with the birds:

Ruff (Philomachus pugnax)

 Dunlin (Calidris alpina), one individual had what it seemed like a longer bill and weird colouring on the bill (as you can see in the above images)

Ducks, ducks, ducks

At the Yperenplas near Wilp some rare ducks for our county have been found a few days ago by Maarten Kaales (totalbirding.blogspot.com). On the big lake there he found a male Ferruginous Duck, a hybrid Ferruginous Duck X Pochard and a female Scaup. A pretty nice assembly in one group of ducks. They were discoveresd on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday I went there with Bram and Tammo. It didn't take long for us to find all three species there. According to Arno ten Hoeve there were even two hybrids present. So perhaps it's a hybrid family: father Ferruginous, mother Pochard and their two kids have visited our county :)

The light was horrible, but despite that I managed to get some recordshots of the ducks.

 Ferrigunous Duck (Aythya nyroca), male

Hybrid Ferrigunous Duck X Pochard (Aythya nyroca X ferina), male

Scaup (Aythya marila), female

Here are some landscape pics:

 Thousands of geese, mainly White-Fronted and Barnacle Geese have been present along the IJssel.

A view on the IJssel with Deventer as its background, flooded land as a result of high water levels (which is common in winter).

Yesterday morning I had two Redpolls spec. foraging together with a Siskin in an alder behind my garden. Everyday several groups of Siskins fly by, maybe some movement!