A scarce garden visitor

My mother had already seen this winter visitor yesterday, but I didn't. This morning I woke up late (8.45 am ..) and took a shower. Whilst I opened the bathroom window I saw this particular bird again: a Fieldfare! The bird saw me as well and flew to our apple tree at the end of the garden.

I was already hoping that we would have a Fieldfare this winter again because last winter, we had at least 4 individuals along with 2 Redwings. You need cheap apples for this though! So after I got dressed I decided to make some recordshots since it is always fun to have a Fieldfare in your own garden.
This are the results:

So above you see a Fieldfare from this winter, now I'll show some photos of the Fieldfares and Redwings of the previous winter:

(Un?)succesful day in Limboland

Today we chose to visit the Wallcreeper, present at the ENCI-quarry near Maastricht for over 3 weeks now. The bird had been seen yesterday, quite regularly from 10.45 till 14.00 (with intervals). We left Apeldoorn around 7.10 am and arrived at the ENCI-quarry around 9.15 am. The bird hadn't been seen yet. We  scanned all the cliffs (visible) from 9.15 till 12.45, but without succes. We weren't bored however, during this 3,5 hour Wallcreeper-less period. There plenty of birds around. The well-known Eagle Owls (best place to see Eagle Owl in the Netherlands atm) were present at their usual spot. Jays were acting like Wallcreepers on the cliffs (keeping us awake) and at one time we saw a Green Woodpecker (heard all morning as well) drilling holes in the merlwall instead of drilling holes in trees.. A calling firecrest was nearby and a group of Long-tailed tits came by in those 3,5 hours as well. Suddenly all the LT-tits got mad and we saw the cause: a Merlin flashing by. It was briefly seen, but we saw clearly a tiny falcon, pointed wings and a short tail. 2 Bullfinches and 3 Hawfinches were seen as well, as you can see above.
At 12.45 we decided to undertake some action as we headed to a special reserve, a so-called reserve for European Hamsters. Plenty of birds were feeding there! As we stopped at the southern part of the reserve I immediatly saw a strange buzzard: it turned out to be a splendid first calenderyear Rough-legged Buzzard.

It had been sighted yesterday so we hoped we would see it today, and we did. Then we decided to go a little more north where a huge flock of Linnets, numbering in the hundreds to a thousand, 300 Greenfinches, 60 Yellowhammers, 15 Bramblings etc were present. We were actually searching for Corn Bunting, as this is the one (and only?) of their known wintering areas in the Netherlands. I soon found a bush with ca. 15 Corn buntings present there, accompanied by some Yellowhammers.

                                                                      (Tammo Meijer)
They were showing well not too far away. A little later ca. 10 of them flew away and 6 stayed in the bush, calling and showing well. Every now and then the big flock of Linnets and co were rushed by some predators: sometimes Hen Harrier but also a juvenile Goshawk. Here, in the reserve we saw a Merlin aswell. It rushed us, and a few minutes later it caught a Linnet. Panic all over the place. Here we had Corn Buntings as well. 6 of them flew by, distinctively calling. The shape/jizz of the birds was very obvious: 'chubby' buntings with a typical way of flying: a kind of 'swinging' flight. Clearly different from Yellowhammer. And last but not least with saw a hunting Red Kite!! In only a few hours time we saw 8 species of birds of prey in this area: Sparrowhawk, Goshawk, Hen Harrier, Kestrel, Merlin, Buzzard, Rough-Legged buzzard and a Red Kite! Remarkable for this time of year, in Zuid-Limburg!

It was around 16.00 pm when we decided to go home to Apeldoorn again. We dipped the Wallcreeper but we still had a wonderful day!

Below some shots of Eagle Owl (Tammo Meijer), Rough-legged Buzzard and a group of 39 Linnets and Greenfinches

A mixture of geese near the IJssel

Today, my father and I did a small tour in our county to see if  we would find any unexpected winter guests. We started at one of our usual winter patches: a small stream of water where we've seen Water rails, Snipes, Woodcocks, Jack Snipes past winter. Today, we did not find anything worth mentioning. We decided to drive towards the IJssel. Our first stop was Empe, a good spot for Bitterns, Smews, Goosanders etc. The water had turned into ice so no birds were found there unfortunately. There were only tiny openings in the ice but nothing unusual was found there. Our second stop was a place near Voorst where we always find good amounts of geese. This time, lots of geese were found as well. In total we saw 5 (excluding Egyptian geese) species of geese. Approximately 4000 White-fronted geese, 8 Tundra Bean Geese (scarce winter visitor here), 15 Barnacle Geese, 30 Greylag geese and the best goose I found there was a Pink-footed Goose! A nice addiotion to my county yearlist. Another funny thing we noticed was that regularly/constantly small groups of White-fronts (including some Bean Geese) flew to the river and landed in the IJssel to quench their thirst!
Around 12.00 p.m it started snowing and soon everything was covered with snow again. The ''snowstorm'' lasted till 17.00 p.m. There's a thick layer of snow (more or less 10 cm) now.

Sadly, the ringing season is really coming to an end now

Still had a ringing session Saturday with good weather but there were almost no birds around:
Wren 1-2 
Robin 4-3
Blue tit 15-3
Goldcrest 4-1

And that was about it ...

Inland snow bunting

Got a text message this morning from Tim if I felt like going to search for a a Snow bunting that had been claimed at the Tongerense Heide yesterday near Gortel, aproxx. 15 km from home. Maarten Kaales also went for a search  (as usual, we had to find the bird for him haha..joking). We arrived at the exact location around 12.30 and immediately found the bird. It was not shy at all and it could be approuched very closeby.Unfortunately this bird resides just a few hundred metres away from our county. It was my first bird for Gelderland. 2 years ago I saw one in my own county (luckily) near the Veenoordkolk, this was the region of Overijssel however so it did not count for my Gelderland list. Here the link to the Snow Bunting of two years ago: http://apeldoornsvogelnet.waarneming.nl/waarneming/view/41113700
Here are some photos of the very tame Snow bunting:

Mealy Redpoll and Skylark

It was a good november morning with again good numbers of Blue tits and a nice Mealy Redpoll and Skylark.

Totals:

Boomkruiper (short-toed Treecreeper) 1-0
Goudhaan (Goldcrest) 1-0
Goudvink (Bullfinch) 1-0
Grote Barmsijs (Mealy Redpoll) 1-0
IJsvogel (Kingfisher) 0-1
Koolmees (Great Tit) 11-5
Merel (Blackbird) 1-0
Pimpelmees (Blue tit) 38-3
Roodborst (Robin) 3-0
Tjiftjaf (Chiffchaff) 1-1 one recap from 4-09-10! Should be in Spain/Morocco by now!
Veldleeuwerik (Skylark) 1-0
Vink (Chaffinch) 1-0
Winterkoning (Wren) 1-1
Zwarte mees (Coal Tit) 3-0
Total: 64-11 = 75

Waxwing!

Yesterday I saw my first Waxwing of the year! It was about time that one would turn up in my county because they've been seen everywhere throughout the country (especially in the western and northern regions). This one I saw in my own county, in my own town, in my own street, in my own garden!! At 10.40 Am I set off to school for a math exam I had to do at 11.00 Am. When I drove across our house I saw a weird blackbird sitting in our apple tree! I usually see blackbirds eating the apples in our apple tree but this time it was something else. It was a waxwing! I heard it calling as well. I soon warned my dad that I just saw a Waxwing in our front garden. I was forced to leave to school for my math exam (too bad..). When I got home from school again my dad said the bird was gone, probably chased away by our local Blackbirds. He made some decent photo's of our garden Waxwing:

                                                                      (Tammo Meijer)