Repeat of the Day

I went back to the woodies, spent a couple of hours with them, enjoying myself!

 Middle-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos medius), bird 1

 Bird 2

Also came across this Roe Deer, that didn't look too healthy after second inspection

Signs of Spring

As a result of the mild weather we're having, lots of birds have the feeling that it's spring already. I visited the Paleispark at Paleis het Loo this morning and had a great morning. Clear skies, with clouds every now and then, together with some slight wind gusts. The birds were in full swing: active Great Spotted Woodpeckers, most species of Tit, singing Chaffinches, Hawfinches, Mistle Thrush, displaying Goshawk and so on. Wonderful. The signs of winter were still conspicious however, with hundreds of Bramblings and Chaffinches. Also, groups of Fieldfares and Redwings were still present in the park.

My visit had a special goal: finding Middle-spotted Woodpeckers. It only took me about half an hour before I found them! I was walking along a lane with old oaks and suddenly I heard and saw two woodpeckers chasing each other. They turned out to be Middle-spotted!

The male showed well for a while, foraging in a oak at close distance. I lost the other bird as soon as I focused on the male, I presume it was a female because it was not really vocal, but I'm not sure. A bit later the male took off and started singing in a patch of oak trees a few 100m away from me. I enjoy the Jay-song of the woodpeckers, very distinctive.

Anyway, I got a couple of decent shots from the bird, if I would have my phone with me a good sound recording would have been collected as well,

 Middle-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos medius), male

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla), male adult winter

Búho real

For almost a week, the Siskins were gone from our garden, but as the cold stayed (and we got some snow) the Siskins came back. On Friday several Siskins were visiting our garden again. In the early morning yesterday I opened my net in the hope of catching some more.

Due to the fact that I didn't have my laptop at home the last two weekends I failed to do an update on the Siskins. On the Sunday the 17th of March I caught the amazing number of 37 Siskins in our garden! 34 were new, 3 were retraps from early March. I didn't know I could catch so many in our relatively small garden, with a single 6m net.

So yesterday, Saturday the 30th of March, I tried again. And I was not dissappointed! I ringed 21 new Siskins, and recaptured 2. One recapture wasn't mine...! It was ringed by my trainer Hans, the day before (Fr 29-03) in his garden. His garden is only 900m away from ours, but still, a great recapture!

Catching (can you count all 8 hanging in the net?)

 Ringing

 Weighing

Then after some ringing we made a short visit to the Middle-spotted Woodpeckers near Hoog Soeren again. We had three males, showing well for a short period of time. Afterwards we visited my grandparents in Ruurlo, seeing quite a few Siskins and a Brambling in their backgarden.

And after a nice chat with my grandparents we went to Winterswijk to check out the breeding Eagle Owls in the quarry overthere. We were rewarded with lots of activity!

As soon as it got quiet the mother started feeding the two chicks (approx 8-10 days old). I'd never seen it before so it was great to see. As it got a bit darker, dad started calling in the nearby forest, making the experience complete! Wow!

Look at those eyes! Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo), phonescoped