SPRING BIRDING IN THE NORTH OF
THE NETHERLANDS
From 14 to 18 May Riet and I, together with Riet's son Iman, who is a good
birder, rented a cabin in the Lauwersmeer area. This area, now largely a nature
reserve, is situated in the extreme north of the Netherlands, between the
provinces of Friesland and Groningen, and until 30 years ago this was a shallow
part of the Wadden Sea. It is now dammed off from the sea and has been
transformed into a mosaic of young forest, salt marshes grazed by horses and
Angus cattle, and a central and still somewhat brackish lake, the Lauwersmeer
proper. The area has become very famous among birders as many rare birds are
found there every year. Also during our stay there were some American strays
present: a Green-winged Teal and a Long-billed Dowitcher. We did not see either
of them. We were anyway most interested in the local birds, and in spite of
partly untoward weather (After the driest April ever in Holland this is rapidly
becoming the wettest May
ever) and keeping a holiday pace we succeeded in seeing a lot of birds, with
the final list well above 100.
Suyderoog, where we had rented a cabin, is a large 'nature village', with the >
200 cabins cunningly placed along a maze of waterways so that one gets still a
certain idea of privacy. A Great Tit nested in a nestbox outside the cabin, and
was frantically feeding the young, while other 'garden birds' were Blackbirds,
Chaffinches, Greenfinches, Common Redstarts, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps, Reed
Warblers, Dunnocks and Winter Wrens. Mallards and partly also Tufted Ducks were
thoroughly domesticized, and clearly accustomed to be fed.
A pair of Common Sandpipers frequented the area during our entire stay,
although I heard little 'song'. Early in the morning the pure flute tones of
Golden orioles, a not very common bird in Holland, could be heard and we later
tracked down the birds to an area closby with tall poplar trees. From Suyderoog
paths criss-crossed the young forest and i.a. led to an area with nesting Sand
Martins (Bank
Swallows) or in the other direction to a bird tower looking out over the open
marshes and water of the Lauwersmeer proper. Here tens of large Mute Swans
dotted the water surface (I wonder if these are all non-breeders), while the
smaller dots resolved into Shelducks, usually in pairs. Marsh Harriers and
Common Kestrels hunted over the area, where last year we also had watched a
Short-eared Owl and a Hen Harrier.
The infrastructure for birders in this area is really excellent, and the next
day we grasped the opportunity to watch shorebirds and waterbirds from very
well-placed hides both at the Jaap Deen Gat on the east side of the lake and
from Ezumakeeg in the SW. At the Jaap Deen Gat the hide looks out over a broken
shoreline, where large numbers of shorebirds gather. This time there were large
numbers of Turnstones and Ringed Plovers, with smaller numbers of Redshanks,
Spotted Redshanks, Barred Godwits, Dunlins, Curlew Sandpipers and
Oystercatchers, and a few Ruffs, Wood Sandpipers, greenshanks, Little Stints
and Avocets. There are also waterbirds; various ducks, among which the
Garganeys are the most interesting for me, again tons of Mute Swans and
Shelducks, and here and there also Greylag Geese. The light here is often very
beautiful indeed. In the marshy area before one comes to the hide, Bluethroats
are singing their glorious song-jumble and displaying, Sedge warblers
songflight, and Meadow Pipits parachute, while a migrating Wheatear trips on
the path. On the last day we returned to this hide, where all the turnstones
now had disappeared, and suddenly came across no less than 10 White-winged
Terns, foraging in a loose flock; these superlatively elegant birds, one of my
absolute favourites, of course do not belong here at all, but clearly there had
once more been a small influx into W.Europe.
Ezumakeeg, on the Frisian side of the Lauwersmeer, is if possible still more
famous with twitchers. There was more mud here close to the hide, and there
many stints and amazing numbers of Ringed Plovers foraged. Most of the stints
were Little Stints, but there were also Temminck's Stints. We scanned all the
teals , but could not find any Green-winged Teal. In winter this area is famous
for the enormous numbers of wintering barnacle goose, and the chance to find
Lesser White-fronted and Red-necked Geese among them; now there were just many
Greylag Geese, and a few Barnacle and Canada Geese. Black-tailed Godwits are
still relatively common here, but this is a species that is decreasing
alarmingly also in the Netherlands, long its main stronghold.
One day the weather forecast was quite grim, and we decided to drive down into
the province of Drente, and hoped that the promised afternoon clearings would
materialize. They did not seem to do so to start with, so that we fled and
visited the painting exhibitions in the provincial museum in Assen. But
gradually the clouds became less monotonously grey and the resulting dramatic
cloudscapes formed just the right background for our visit to Fochteloerveen, a
very large (by Dutch standards, at least) area of fens and heather on the
boundary of Friesland and Drente, and an area we did not really know, although
we had visited it briefly last year, also then in quite bad weather. I wish I
could show you the very beautiful and expressive pictures that Iman made during
our visit this time; they show a quite un-Dutch landscape of fens, mire,
heather and scattered trees. It is here that Cranes have started to nest a few
years ago, after a very long absence from the Netherlands (and we did in fact
see the pair from the very modern and special bird tower in the area), and it
is also here that Short-toed Eagles have been seen several summers in a row
(and amazingly enough a Short-toed Eagle hunting and hovering was almost the
first bird we saw before we even were in the area proper, coming from
Veenhuizen). This area is also a core area for Whinchats in the Netherlands
these days, a species which has lost terrain steadily. And indeed, during a
walk through the marsh area Whinchats, and also Stonechats, were indeed quite
common while Cuckoos sounded all around. Just as last year, the bird hide on a
little lake at the edge of the area showed us large numbers of swallows (Barn
Swallows, House and Sand Martins) and swifts feeding low over the water
surface, and Little and Eared Grebes on the water, no doubt nesting here. Later
that same afternoon we visited another protected area in Drente, Diepenveen,
where a 160m long tunnel brings you to a hide in the middle of a cluster of
small lakes, situated in the midst of a throughly agricultural area (with
Yellowhammers, yellow wagtails, and a large fox). this is the only place in the
Netherlands where Red-necked Grebes can easily be seen; in fact no less than
four species of grebe nest here: Great Crested, Red-necked, Eared and Little.
The Netherlands are grossly overpopulated, and there are also large problems
with eutrophication and excess nitrogen and phosphorus almost everywhere. How
surprising and gratifying then, that the country still has so much to show in
term of nature, and maybe especially bird life!
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
==============================www.birding-aus.org
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