4th of January: I'd Rather Photograph A Hoopoe Than Seeing A Lynx!

We left to La Lancha quite early in the morning, not knowing we would miss a Lynx in one minute.. On our way to La Lancha we were stopped by several Red Deer, showing well next to the road:

Nice male.

And a bit further down the road we were rewarded with a close Hoopoe, warming up in the cold!

The cold Hoopoe.

A few minutes later we arrived at the Lynx spot, to find out we had missed a Lynx in one minute... What we saw: running Lynx-watchers, Lynx-watchers searching through their telescope etc.. It feels pretty bad to miss a Lynx but ofcourse you can always come up with excuses why you've missed it. To look on the bright side: we photographed a nice male Red Deer and a Hoopoe!

Searching for Lynxes, even the other family members participated as you can see!

Dissappearing fog on a sunny morning.

At the Lynx-spot we had good views of a Dartford Warbler and we had a flyover Fieldfare. Later in the morning the Vultures became active again. Both Black and Griffon were seen. In addition, when we were already on our way back I discovered a displaying eagle: Spanish Imperial Eagle. It was showing perfectly well through the telescope and not much later is was joined by a second bird. We heard it calling as well!

A Sparrowhawk passed by near Los Pinos.

In the afternoon we headed to the Santuario de La Virgen de la Cabeza. A monastry (and village) situated on the highest hill in the Sierra. From there you have an amazing view over the Sierra. The Sierra Nevada is even visible. On our way to there we had a good view of our first Golden Eagle of the trip. What are these birds majestic! Flying around with their wings up, just wonderful! At the monastry I started scanning the sky with the telescope resulting in one Spanish Imperial Eagle, two Golden Eagles of which one was displaying; it was diving down on high speed, folding together its wing, before heading up again. This specatcle durated a couple of minutes. I always get so excited when seeing eagles, they're just so cool! Further raptors included a Peregrine and a juvenile Bonelli's Eagle. When we went back to our appartment it was already dark. This had been our last day here. The next day we would leave to Sevilla, our last destination of the Spain-trip.

3rd of January: Another day in the Spanish Sierras

I interrupted the Spain trip report to share other cool sightings I did the past weeks in Holland, but I still would like to share the rest of the trip, so back to Spain!

On the morning of the 3rd I woke up around 7.30. I went outside, listening to a calling Tawny Owl. Hawfinches were present in the trees nearby and I saw a foraging Cetti's Warbler, skulking along a fence at the parking lot. We drove to La Lancha, which would be our first visit there. On our way we could add Crested Tit to our list. We waited the entire morning for Lynxes, with plenty of other Lynx-watchers, but none showed up. We got told that they weren't active yet, for some reason..

Amongst others, Sardinian Warblers kept us busy.

In the late morning the vultures started to fly which resulted in good views of lots of Griffon Vultures and about 15 Black Vultures.

 Black Vulture

Griffon Vulture

Around 13.30 we took off to Los Pinos to get ourselves some lunch. The way back was quite productive as it resulted in lots of Vultures and our first two Spanish Imperial Eagles! Ooh eagles are so freakin' awesome!

Spanish Imperial Eagle

After our wel deserved lunch at the Los Pinos restaurant my dad and I took off again, in the late afternoon. We left to the Rio Jandula in the hope of seeing Lynxes. 

Azure-winged Magpies are abundant throughout the Sierra.

We had a fly-by of a Great White Egret but other than that it was quiet, concerning the Lynxes. After the sun had dissapeared behind the sierra we drove a bit further, down the embalse. When we got out of the car I noticed a raptor sitting a few hundred metres away on a pylon. I got the scope out and checked the raptor. It was a small eagle with a long tail and real 'eagle bill'. These features made us ID it as a Bonelli's Eagle. My dad didn't pay as much attention to the bird as I did but luckily for me, I took a record-shot with my camera of the bird. It's something I always do when in a hurry or seeing a bird we cannot identify immediatly. My dad wanted to get closer but before we had closer views we noticed it had dissapeared without us noticing! Too bad, but luckily I got some pics. They're bad but at least you can distinguish something from it...

Distant, as you can see..

And a huge crop..

And then another surprise: while finding out the eagle had gone my dad discovered a flying Eagle Owl! It was passing us by overhead, really closeby, giving us amazing views through the telescope (eventhough it was almost dark!), What a great ending of the day!

Snipe Day!

This morning, before I had to go to work my dad and I checked some streams with flowing water to see if we could find anything exciting. Since everything is frozen checking flowing streams often results in cool things! We had 3 Green Sandpipers, 3 Snipes, 1 Jack Snipe, 1 Woodcock and 1 Grey Wagtail and 1 Little Grebe. We were able to take some good pics of the foraging Jack Snipe and Woodcock. Despite the very cold weather the snipes seemed in good condition, luckily.

 Jack Snipe

Search for it! It tried to 'dissappear' when a jogger passed by.

 Woodcock, foraging along a stream.

The Woodcock took off, and landed closer to the car. (By Tammo Meijer)

You Can't Have All!

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

New county tick!

I had a ringing session in the garden this morning. It was a dissapointing session, with just 3 birds being ringed! The bright sunlight was likely to have spoiled the catch rate this morning.. I ringed 2 Greenfinch and 1 Blackbird, still a bit of quality though :)

In the afternoon my dad and I headed to the IJssel near Deventer to twitch a Red-breasted Merganser that had been discovered at the IJssel yesterday. This species is a very good county species! After a bit of searching we found the bird and it showed very well, cool! Furthermore we saw 17 Whooper Swans, 5 Bewick's Swans, 15 Smews, 30 Goldeneye's and 3 Goosanders. While walking along the edge of the river we flushed a Jack Snipe, briefly showing well!

Female Red-breasted Merganser (by Tammo Meijer)

Jack Snipe (by Tammo Meijer)

Open water close to the road resulted in some close Whoopers!

Fantastic winter ringing!

Today, my dad, Bram and I went ringing at Castricum along the coast. Friday and yesterday they had some impressive numbers due to the snowfall and the frost. We figured today would be a bit 'the day after' but still, you never know it with bird ringing, so we decided to give it a go. With result!

The day started slow, with just a few Skylarks and Starlings being trapped. Missing Lapwing, Wigeons and a Mallard on the clapnet, Gadwall and Curlews landing next to the net we thought it would be going to be a dissappointing day. A typical day on which you miss all!

But then... things started to change after noon. And luckily for us then, it didn't feel like the after anymore. The photos below will explain!

First:

Starling, 2cy male

Skylark

And then, excitement:

Dunlin, adult winter

Dunlin, >2cy, because of the grey coloured scapulars/coverts.

Gulls started to come:

5 Black-headed Gulls were being trapped, one bearing a Helsinki-ring!

A spectacular number of 112 Common Gulls was trapped; 1 bearing a Helsinki-ring and 1 with a Moskva-ring (very very rare!).

We ringed 3 Herring Gulls of which one was of the Scandinavian subspecies argentatus (above)

The primaries of the argentatus (lots of white on P10)

We ringed three Fieldfares.On the above photo: upper one 2cy male, lower one >2cy female; note the rufous-brown greater coverts of the adult in contrast to the greyish-brown greater coverts of the juvenile.

Fieldfare, 2cy male

And in the end, finally after a lot of effort, a Curlew! A 2cy bird.

Such cool feet!

 Tammo

Bram

Me

The nets covered in snow.

In conclusion: we had a fantastic (but freeeezing cold) day!

Ringing update ring-MUS project!

I haven't updated anything about bird ringing lately but this doesn't mean I haven't ringed any birds recently ofcourse! I had three ringing sessions this January, with pretty good results, despite the mild weather. In total I caught 49 birds, of which 36 were new and 13 were recaptures. This is not bad considering I'm catching with just either one 9 metre or one 6 metre net. I broke my daily record last week, with 20 birds caught on one day!

Below you can find the numbers along with some nice pictures (of at least one ringing tick for me!)

18th of January
Time: 8:30 - 13:30
Net: 9 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 1 -
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 4 - 2
Great Tit (Koolmees) - 2
Greenfinch (Groenling) 2 -
House Sparrow (Huismus) 7 -

Total 14 - 4 (18)


24th of January
Time: 8:30 - 14:30
Net: 9 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 2 -
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 7 - 6
Dunnock (Heggenmus) - 1
House Sparrow (Huismus) 3 -
Wood Pigeon (Houtduif) 1 -


Total 13 - 7 (20)

31st of January
Time: 8:30 - 14:30
Net: 6 metre

Blackbird (Merel) 4 - 1
Blue Tit (Pimpelmees) 1 - 1
Chaffinch (Vink) 1 -
Great Tit (Koolmees) 2 -
Greenfinch (Groenling) 1 -

Total 9 - 2 (11)

The first colourringed House Sparrow of 2012 (18-1)

Greenfinch, >1cy female (18-1)
Weird colouration on the P1, compared to the other primaries (grey vs. yellow). Maybe a lack of pigmentation?

Greenfinch, 2cy female (18-1)

Note the overall brown, especially the GC's and PC's

Greenfinch, 2cy male (31-1)

edit: I just looked at the pictures again, and this if ofcourse not a >2cy bird! Note the moult limit in the tertails and it looks like P1 to P5 are retained juvenile feathers, and so are the secondaries.

Chaffinch, 2cy female (31-1)

Note the moult limit in the GC's (the outer three ones are old).

 The new ringing tick! It was just hanging in the top shelf of the net, very calmly just hanging there. Not until I came to extract it! What a powerful bird! I had a hard time, ringing this bird on my own! It was maybe even more difficult to ring than the Pileated Woodpecker at Powdermill haha.

 I was surprised that it remained really calm while holding the pigeon.

 Note the moult limit in the secondaries and the uniform quality of the primaries. Thanks to Stephen Menzie (a.k.a Wood Pigeon moult expert) for helping with the age of the bird. We aged it as a >4cy.

A 2cy bird would show some really worn brown secondaries, a 3cy would have the middle secondary really worn and brown which this one hasn't. This makes it a >4cy.

Faab holding the pigeon!