Firecrest

click here for one of the four singing Firecrests of today

Hoog Buurlosche heide

The last two weeks a lot of our breeding birds have arrived again which makes you aware that spring has started! On my birthday, the 18th of march I had my first singing Chiffchaff of the year near my school. The IJssel was interesting last weekend as well with 7 Dunlins, 14 Ruffs, 1 Great Scaup, 2 Ringed Plovers, 2-4 Garganeys and a Marsh Harrier.
Today we went to the Hoog Buurlosche heide. It was a lovely morning but unfortunatly there still was a strong wind which mend  there would not be a lot of migration. I expected the first Willow warbler and Tree pipits, and indeed we had two of both singing on the Braamberg, very nice! Followed by lots of singing woodlarks and skylarks. In the forests we had 8 singing Crested Tits, circa 5 singing Coal tits and Marsh tits were numerous as well. We had 3 species of woodpeckers, Great Spotted, 2 Green and 1 calling Black woodpecker.
On the heathland we also had a Great Grey Shrike and an early Ring Ouzel! While I was checking a group of starlings with a Mistle Thrush amongst the group when I saw a black bird with silver wings dropping down in a small oak next to the path, I thought....... hmmm could be a ring ouzel, and indeed when the bird flew off it showed its ''silver'' wings, the white band near its throat. It was a male.
On our way back to home we stopped at a spot with Black woodpeckers present as well.
Some Black Woodpecker shots of Tammo Meijer:

And just some more shots of the past few weeks.

Little Owl

EAGLE OWL!

Yesterday night at 7.30 pm I got a call from Tim de Boer that he was now looking and listening at an Eagle Owl near the Waltersingel, Apeldoorn-west. I immediatly grabbed my bike and cycled to the Waltersingel. It took me about  8 minutas ( i was cycling very fast!) and when I arrived I saw Tim and Maarten standing there. I already heard it calling when I was 200 meters away. Maarten already had taken some shots and I saw the eagle owl through his scope. Nice bird! It was calling actively and after 10 minutes it flew off to another building. Meanwhile Alex Kwak and Theo van Veenendaal and Peter Lindeboom from the Apeldoorns vogelnet arrived. A few minutes later it flew away again right past me! What a massive bird! Even though it was probably not a wild one it was great to experience.
I've seen Eurasian Eagle owls before in Spain: in the Extremadura and in the Pyerenees and in Limburg as well. And some other places I think, but I can't remember them by heart.
Nevertheless it was a nice bird.

Today during my ''in-between-hour'' I looked on waarneming.nl and saw that the eagle owl was now seen by day. So after I got out from school at 2 p.m I went to the Waltersingel again. There I met some birders and some folks who lived in that particular street. It was justing singing by day! It is supposed to be singing at night but this one ignored that! Furthermore it was not shy at all and eventually a blue ring was discoverd so everyone now knows this bird is an escape. Probably a bird from someone from Voorst who lost the bird in November 2009 and who doesn't have it back yet.

See the Eagle Owls on waarneming.nl

A dip-day?

In the morning we went to the IJssel again to watch birds. The water level is high now in March because of all the melting water and rain water coming from the mountains (Alps etc). The river-foreland is now filled with water and around March the first waders such as Ruffs, Redshanks, Godwits etc arrive in those river-forelands. So this is a nice time for waders to turn up here. It was now filled with Lapwings and a few Redshanks. The Black-tailed godwits were missing, perhaps due to the cold weather we've had (and still have) now they might have gone a bit to the south. Normally the place is filled with godwits and numbers can increase to 1500. We found a nice first winter Peregrine sitting on a pole not far away. It was very confiding. A few minutes later it flew of and dissapeared, probably going for hunting on the farmlands. We drove towards the north and there we found 6 Grey Patridges, I managed to take a fine shot of a Patridge not far away from the car. Furthermore there were lots of Oystercatchers present.
We drove off to Terwolde because of a Snow goose which has been present there for about 2 days now. We failed to find the 'plastic' goose however which is a pity since it is still a region tick for me! :) We did see 4 Shelducks, a Water pipit, 10 Whooper Swans which were foraging next to the road. After dipping the Snow Goose we decided to go to the Rammelerwaard, which is situated between Zutphen and Voorst. It is a nice area but the birds are rather distant over there, especially the waders and ducks. There were plenty of Teals, Wigeons and Gadwalls present. So was 1 Goosander and a pair of Shovelers. We walked along the dike and after that we walked back to the car, and we went home again.
Later in the evening, I checked waarneming.nl /vwgdeijsselstreek.nl and saw that the Red-breasted still had been down there. If we would have walked just a bit further we'd probably had encountered the bird, which is still a region tick for me aswell. So i can conclude that today I dipped two geese.... very pathetic haha. But nevermind, I had a great day:

Quality birdwatching from my attic

With the cranes of yesterday still roaming in my head I woke up around eight o' clock. I walked towards my window and opened the curtains: hmm the weather seemed quite pleasant. Then I noticed lots of geese passing by, distant as well as close. My bins were still lying in my room so I grabbed them. Suddenly I saw a group of large birds flying past. I watched them with my binoculars: 12 Bewick's swans! Great, another new houselist species! I identified them as Bewick's swan because of the following features: small swans, short neck (opposite of Whooper swans) and their fast wing-beats. They were flying in a north-easterly direction. This was a nice wake-up call! I decided to take my breakfast upstairs and to check all the birds passing by. There was lots of migration of geese, especially Greylags and White-fronted geese. Furthermore I had 3 Hawfinches, 1 Mistle Thrush (new houselist species aswell!). The highlight of 1.5 hours migration counting was a Red Kite! I discovered this raptor while watching some incoming geese from the west. The bird was distant but I could see its distinguishing characteristics, the forked tail, the bent wings plus the typical kite flight: a slow and rolling way of flying. It was being mobbed by a Sparrowhawk. This was around 8.45. Half an our later this bird was presumbly seen on the Braamberg by Maarten Kaales (www.birdalerts.nl).
Around 9.30 I saw a possible crane, but it was too far away and flew too high to be a 100 percent sure. It was a large, grey bird but yeh... This bird was first trying to find thermal and after this it left in a easterly direction. It's a pity that I could not fully ID this bird.

Above you can see the view from my attic