TwoDipsfromAmsterdam
Anything About?
No, not the Bruce Hornsby song but an occasional thread about birding in the Netherlands. We moved here, from Paris, a month ago and once we had (more or less) unpacked and got the house looking more like a home than a warehouse the serious birding began. Well, not that serious as we still don't have a car - or (horror of horrors) a bicycle.
We're living in the small town of Vianen about 12km south of Utrecht. On my first day here we went to the local town hall to start the process of acquiring our residency permits and found a White Stork's nest on the roof, complete with one White Stork. Not a bad start.
Since then I've been working the areas around the town. The River Lek runs east-west just north of the town and just west of the bridge that takes the A2 motorway over the river there is Middelwaard lake. Not a huge lake but, nevertheless, a lake big enough to hold a few hundred Wigeon.
My first serious birding day here took me beyond the lake along a dike with excellent views over the polders. That day produced a Great White Egret, Goosander and a flock of Siskin. The next few days turned up a male Peregrine (turns out that he's regular), Goldeneye, White-fronted, Barnacle and Greylag Geese (plus the annoyingly noisy Egyptian Geese), Shoveler and Black-tailed Godwit. A few Stonechats and alba wagtails passed through in early March and the first Chiffchaff was heard on the 14th. A superb adult male Hen Harrier drifted through late afternoon on the 21st with the first Willow Warbler the next day. A pair of Red-crested Pochard were present for one day only on the 24th with the first Sand Martins on 25th and the first Swallows earlier today.
After ten years of little else other than central Paris (well, the Bois de Boulogne, which did throw up things like Black Woodpecker and Crested Tit) it's good to be back in the (real) field again! And having learnt my birding in Devon it's wonderful to see Buzzards every time I'm out. Especially the light morph individual that thinks it's a Rough-legged.
Even birding from the train can be good with Buzzards, Sparrowhawks and another Great White Egret. So, first impressions are good and given that March is a relatively quiet time it's been a good start.
Let's see what develops.........
David
We're living in the small town of Vianen about 12km south of Utrecht. On my first day here we went to the local town hall to start the process of acquiring our residency permits and found a White Stork's nest on the roof, complete with one White Stork. Not a bad start.
Since then I've been working the areas around the town. The River Lek runs east-west just north of the town and just west of the bridge that takes the A2 motorway over the river there is Middelwaard lake. Not a huge lake but, nevertheless, a lake big enough to hold a few hundred Wigeon.
My first serious birding day here took me beyond the lake along a dike with excellent views over the polders. That day produced a Great White Egret, Goosander and a flock of Siskin. The next few days turned up a male Peregrine (turns out that he's regular), Goldeneye, White-fronted, Barnacle and Greylag Geese (plus the annoyingly noisy Egyptian Geese), Shoveler and Black-tailed Godwit. A few Stonechats and alba wagtails passed through in early March and the first Chiffchaff was heard on the 14th. A superb adult male Hen Harrier drifted through late afternoon on the 21st with the first Willow Warbler the next day. A pair of Red-crested Pochard were present for one day only on the 24th with the first Sand Martins on 25th and the first Swallows earlier today.
After ten years of little else other than central Paris (well, the Bois de Boulogne, which did throw up things like Black Woodpecker and Crested Tit) it's good to be back in the (real) field again! And having learnt my birding in Devon it's wonderful to see Buzzards every time I'm out. Especially the light morph individual that thinks it's a Rough-legged.
Even birding from the train can be good with Buzzards, Sparrowhawks and another Great White Egret. So, first impressions are good and given that March is a relatively quiet time it's been a good start.
Let's see what develops.........
David