Het Zwin (1 Viewer)

Hi,

Myself & my wife have got a few days in Cadzand Bad in early February. We know the area slightly & I know that we are very close to the Dutch side of Het Zwin reserve. Equally, we know that most of Het Zwin is in Belgium. So two questions for anybody who knows the area well:-

1) Will we be able to walk onto (& see most of) the reserve from the Dutch side, or will it be more productive to drive around to the Knokke (Belgian) side?

2) What will be our main target species. We aren't after any mega rarities, just some 'nice' birds rarely, if ever, found in northern England.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Access to the reserve is rather limited from the Dutch side, but still worthwhile. As a word of warning: my mother and brother got cut off by the tide there once (a very funny phone call for me, having to solve their situation while I was out birding 200 km away).
If you drive round you can enter the larger Belgian side of the reserve through a bird park (so you'll have to pay).
To give you some idea, look at waarneming.nl: http://waarneming.nl/gebied/view/4427?lang=en&local=nl and waarnemingen.be: http://waarnemingen.be/gebied/view/31752?lang=en&local=be
The beach at Cadzand is quite good for finding shark's teeth and fossilised shells, if the birds do not cooperate!

Thank you for the response & the attached sightings spreadsheet.
As I said in my opening post, I'm quite familiar with the area (we had a few days in each of Cadzand & Sluis last summer & I stayed in the Knokke area about 8 years ago) but this time things are different, as my 'likes birds, but can think of better things to do than spend all day on a cold and wet reserve' wife has agreed to a full day on Het Zwin as part of my birthday celebrations.