MARCH IN HOLLAND
Tromsø has still almost full winter, although the first Snow buntings,
Common Gulls and even Oystercatchers have been seen (though not as yet by
me). But the fish meal factory, finally producing again after many lean
years, still attracts typical winter birds as King Eiders, and Glaucous and
Iceland Gulls, and the Ravens still fly around in our built-up southern
part of the island of Tromsøya. Snow depth is ca 160 cm, and last weekend a
building collapsed again, sadly killing three soldiers and injuring a
number of others.
Since spring not yet wants to come to me, I went to search
spring, and
visited Riet in Odijk for a week of battery-loading. The weather was
typically March in Holland: one day sleet, hail and around freezing, the
next rain, high winds and +12*C. Our programme was heavily filled with
visits to and from family and friends, but we tried to find as much time as
possible for walks, and my year bird list, which had been stationary at 22
since January, jumped during this week to 102, clearly showing once more
the much greater diversity of birds at this lower latitude, in a
bird-friendly country such as Holland.
I have described Riet's small back garden, 10 by 15 m in ' a
house in a
row in a street' in the middle of the sleeping town of Odijk, just outside
Utrecht, earlier to most of you. It is small, with high walls to the
neighboring gardens (and one neighbor has paved over their entire garden,
thus obviating the need for gardening), and many and varied flowers around
a small lawn. An Amelanchier and a prune are very important for the birds,
as is the tall American oak in the back, the ivy covering the wall to the
next garden, and the large birch in front of the house. the Snowdrops are
already fading, but crocuses, Eranthis and daffodils are in full flower,
and the first primrose came out while i was there.
Riet scatters bread crumbs, oat meal and bits of apple on the
garden
table, and there are always an amazing number and variety of birds there,
even though most of the larger birds, such as gulls, Jackdaws and Wood
Pigeons, do not dare to land there. Since last time, the Collared Doves
have found courage, though, and now they are very regular visitors to the
table, often even squabbling and jockeying for place---there are up to 6
doves in the near vicinity.
Otherwise bird life in the garden this time a year is dominated by
Chaffinches, of which Holland attracts enormous numbers in winter. They are
in full song by now, and the air is ringing with their optimistic positive
statements. There are in fact more chaffinches than sparrows in the garden,
but the table does attract both House Sparrows and the neat and always
clean-looking Eur. Tree Sparrows. Also the Blackbirds are rapidly getting
into full song; this year the resident pair seems to have their nest in the
neighboring garden (not the paved-over one!), but the male sings often from
the oak or the roof. A Song Thrush shouts its spring message from a few
houses away, but also this bird now and then comes and looks over the
offerings on the garden table. (There are also Mistle Thrushes in suburbia,
but this spring not just here.)
Other constant garden birds are the European Robin, 'the master
singer
with the narrow throat', Great and Blue Tits, and the Dunnock or Hedge
Accentor (I'll probably never get used to that bookish name for such an
unpretentious bird), that somewhat apologetically shuffles around on, or
more often below, the bird table, but which sings its hasty, somewhat
mechanical jingle from the tip of the trees in the early morning. After
this mild winter the garden of course also boosts a resident Winter Wren,
the Winter King of an earlier message---this bundle of energy shuns the
food on the garden table and prefers to hunt its own, often just outside
the living room window, where we can watch it shake with pent-up energy as
it belts out its surprisingly loud *I am the king of all the birrrrds*. for
some reason the Starlings, that demonstrate their prowess in imitations
from the roof, are now less interested in the bird food.
More occasional visitors this winter are the fat brassy
Greenfinches, the
neat cozy Goldfinches, and the adorable Long-tailed tits, that sweep
through in a small flock, foraging as they go, ' as if they had a train to
catch'. Overhead gulls, crows, Mallards and also Grey Herons pass, and
every so often the cackle of large skeins of geese filters down to us
through the ever present noise of the traffic in this sadly much too full
country; they are here mostly Greylags or White-fronted Geese.
Our walks in the surroundings added a lot of different birds,
and also
signs of spring. Odijk is on the boundary between the sandy higher grounds
of the Utrechtse Heuvelrug and the river slays of the Rhine and its
tributaries, one of which, the Kromme Rijn, flows through the village. So
one can choose many different habitats within a shirt distance of the village.
On clearings in the pine forest we enjoyed a wonderful concert
of
Woodlarks, better in fact than I ever heard before. The birds were either
singing from the ground or low bushes, or flitting bat-like and in
irregular patterns at quite low altitudes (There was much wind this day),
so that they were easy to follow.
In the park-like areas around old stately homes on the clay the
morning
chorus was already quite intense, even though the Blackbirds were not yet
in full force. Dominant most places were Chaffinches, Robins, Great and
Blue Tits, and Winter Wrens, with the basso continuo of the doves and
pigeons, including the insistent, but easily missed oo....ooo...ooo of the
Stock Doves. Some places---I still do not know what governs this-- the '
compressed spiral' song strophes of the Short-toed Treecreeper are all
around, while in the beech alleys the European Nuthatch cheers you up with
their always joyful sounding calls. One single singing Chiffchaff was the
clearest harbinger of spring.
One beautiful day is noted in my notebook as Woodpecker Tattoo
day, as
wherever we walked, we heard the incessant drum-bursts of the Great Spotted
Woodpeckers, and their fierce ' pick'-calls, as they were chasing each
other through the beeches. Also the laughter of the Green Woodpecker was a
common sound, and from above comes the miaowing of the Buzzard, these days
a bird that is present in almost every woodland in Holland. (Amazing, as
this was a rare bird while I grew up, no doubt largely because of poisonous
seed-dressings and misinformed land-owners protecting their pheasants).
One day, a classical Dutch March day with high winds and lots
of rain, we
joined Riet's brother and his wife on a trip to the classical '
goose-areas' on the islands SW of Rotterdam, an area Chiel knows very
well having lived there earlier. When I was a kid in Zeeland, I thought
that the whole world was full of what we called ' frost-geese' in winter,
just as the fields around our village; only later I realized that I had
been particularly privileged to grow up in such an area. Where we were this
day, is ' some islands further north' (All these islands are now cobbled
together with dams, bridges or tunnels), but it had the same surfeit of
geese that I remember so well. However, in addition to the thousands of
White-fronted geese of my youth, here there also are equal numbers of
Barnacle Geese--yapping like small dogs when they fly up--, and smaller
numbers of Bean Geese, with the odd Canada Goose (we missed out on all the
rarities of the area, no doubt partly because of the weather). European
Wigeons were also ubiquitous and in large numbers, and gradually we built
up a quite impressive suite of ducks and grebes, with a few Red-throated
loons at sea off one of the new dams representing the divers.
Meadow birds were not yet at full strength, and all of the
Redshanks and
some of the Black-tailed Godwits were still in flocks, although some of the
godwits displayed and gave me the exquisite pleasure of hearing ' the voice
of green Holland' once more; I never tire of it! Of course the Lapwings
were already in full activity, doing their acrobating displays and
harassing every crow or raptor flying across their territories. These were
kestrels, Buzzards, or beautiful blue Hen Harriers. We saw few small birds
this day (Although the Meadow Pipits were also back), because of all the
wind and rain, but in spite of this the tally stopped at ca 70 birds at the
end of the day.
Our last walk was in the polder of Arkemheen, in the middle of
the
country, NE of Amersfoort. This is a wide open polder along the shores of
the former Zuiderzee; now only the narrow Nijkerker Nauw separates the
shore from the ' new land' of South Flevoland. That day we were blessed by
wonderful weather, with ' typically Dutch sky-scapes' and beautiful light.
in the low-lying meadow of the polder thousands of Starlings and Lapwings
and hundreds of godwits foraged, and every now and then the whole flocks
went up in a panic, with especially the starlings showing off their great
prowess in formation-flying, with the flock now forming a tight ball, now
stretched out in almost northern light-like ever changing formations. Often
we could not see what caused the panics, but there were buzzards and at
least one Merlin around. The Bewick's Swans, that winter here, had already
left, but many Mute Swans dotted the meadows; one of these dots, by the
way, turned out to be a Spoonbill. In the reeds of the several small reedy
ponds just arrived Reed Buntings scratched their songs, and most farms had
reacquired their pair of White Wagtails.
On the water, on the other side of the dike, many pairs of
Great Crested
Grebes were in full swing with their wonderful displays, while further out
large flocks of Tufted Ducks and Pochards gleamed in the sun, and active
small flocks of Goldeneyes flew around with the characteristic bell sound
of their wings. It is very very easy to love Holland and its nature on days
like this!!
Next week I shall once more leave winter (It is snowing heavily
while I
write this), and embark on a 3 months stay at the University College of
Cork, in SW Ireland. I assume that this is a too well-known area to warrant
further impressions on your lists, so will stay mostly silent unless you
people want it otherwise. At least in Cork, avalanches will no longer be a
major problem, I'm sure!
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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