The Netherlands December 2017

A belated post on a short trip over the Netherlands I did back in December. I flew into Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam on the morning of the 12th and left again on the afternoon of the 14th. The primary goal of the trip was to try and catch up with Lesser White-fronted Goose and Red-breasted Goose. I succeeded in accomplishing the latter target but was rather unlucky in the former. There had been several reports of different Red-breasted Geese on and off during the previous month at a few spots across the country. The nearest report was only a few kilometres north-west of Rotterdam from where I based myself for the next two nights. My trip coincided with decent amounts of snow which had been on the ground for a few days. Every road was perfect but it did have an effect on the birds especially the geese. After going through several hundred geese (the majority being Russian White-fronted and Greylag with smaller numbers of Barnacle, feral Canada and Egyptian Geese) I eventually picked up a pair of Red-breasted Geese which had been previously reported in the general area of Noord-Kethel. They were in a relatively small flock of geese but were about 800 metres away. Even at that long distance they were obvious enough especially for a goose! It would have been nice to have decent look at what was a lifer for me but I should glad I managed to see them at all. With the poor light already decreasing I made a bee-line for the Lesser White-fronted Goose location - Oudeland van Strijen. This is one of the main wintering grounds for the small Swedish breeding population. I ran into a helpful Dutch birder who pointed me in the right direction. I also had good information on the location thanks to the very useful Waarneming.nl website. The Dutch birder also mentioned that the snow could have pushed off the geese to another snow-free site. I searched the spot until dark but didn't get a sniff of any LWFG.

I started my second day at this same spot first thing in the morning after eventually managing to escape the Rotterdam traffic. I could see that the snow was slowly starting to disappear but there were still significant snow coverage. While scanning from the car I managed to drain the car battery of the rental car. The automatic headlights remain on if the keys are left in the ignition. Lucky I managed to convince a passing local to give me a hand to jump-start the bloody thing, lesson learned! After a few hours without any success I decided to head out to the coast and birded the area near Stellendam. This consisted of more polderland, sand dune systems, saltmarsh and mudflat. A few nice species here included Spoonbill, Cetti's Warbler, Firecrest, Snow Bunting, Brambling and Twite.

I only had a few hours to spare on the third day before flying home. Most of the snow had now melted. I was back again at the polderland near Strijen to look for LWFG. There was huge increase in the numbers of geese in the area particularly Barnacle Geese which had been largely absent the two previous days. There must have been several thousand geese in the whole area. I again searched the usual LWFG spot from all angles but had no joy. With an increasing mind-numbling migraine pounding in my head I called it a day and made my way back to the airport. I checked a large park within Rotterdam hoping for a few woodland species but saw little of note to be honest. I'm not sure if the Netherlands has a national bird but if not then it should probably be Eurasian Coot with the huge amount of water in the country, they seemed to be everywhere. It was interesting to see so many Great White Egrets throughout the country. I even managed to "twitch"three Cattle Egret at the LWFG site, they are still considered a rarity in the country. I didn't see a single Little Egret though?
I took virtually no shots during the three days. Shortly after arriving back in Dublin I checked the Waarneming site to see if there had been any news reported from my last day. It was a little soul destroying to see a report of 23 Lesser White-fronted Geese and a single Red-breasted Goose from Oudeland van Strijen after I had left!

Cattle Egret, Oude van Strijen, Netherlands, 14th December 2017.

Cattle Egret, Oude van Strijen, Netherlands, 14th December 2017.

Common Buzzard, Oude van Strijen, Netherlands, 14th December 2017.

Common Buzzard, Oude van Strijen, Netherlands, 14th December 2017.

Red-breasted Goose, Noord-Kethel, Netherlands, 12th December 2017.

Noord-Kethel, Netherlands, 12th December 2017.

Noord-Kethel, Netherlands, 12th December 2017.

Grey Partridge August 15

I was back in the Midlands at the weekend and had a look at the Lough Boora Parklands which is just down the road from where I grew up. This is where I spent most of my early years as a birder. It's a huge area of cutover raised bog which has been harvested by Bord na Mona over many decades. Milled peat from this area was used to supply a Ferbane Power Station which was decommissioned /blow-up in 2003. As I was passing by the old site on Saturday I saw two newly erected wind turbines quite close to the old power station site, how times are changing!

Several lakes/wetlands have been created on the cutover bogs and these attract a few waterbirds. While they're no where as rich as the Shannon Callows they have proved to be quite good for wintering Whooper Swans, up to 250 birds. They have also been quite good for breeding waders, Lapwing in particular. It is now probably one of if not the most important site for the species in the Republic of Ireland. Thanks to work carried out by the Irish Grey Partridge Conservation Trust for partridge, many other species such as Lapwing have benefited greatly. Usually when I hear about local gun clubs talking about doing there bit for conservation it usually consists of shooting a few foxes and crows and then dumping a few hundred naïve Pheasant or Mallard into the wild. What this produces is very questionable. However in this case a huge amount of time and effort is put into creating nesting cover, insect rich chick rearing and winter food and cover habitat for Grey Partridge. Brendan Kavanagh originally started the project who managed to hire Kieran Buckley as a gamekeeper and has been involved with the project ever since. Paddy Kelly has also been working on the project for several years now and has done great work on rearing partridge chicks in captivity which are later released into the project area. He's also involved in a pilot project to rear Corncrake chicks in captivity down at Boora. These haven't yet been released though to my knowledge. Predator control is also carried out by two professional full time gamekeepers now. It's great to see responsible gamekeeping unlike what is regularly seen in the UK. While I was down in the partridge area I had Buzzard, Hen Harrier and three Kestrels all in the core partridge area. While Buzzard and Hen Harrier will occasionally take the odd partridge the guys working there know that this is insignificant in the bigger picture of things. There is such an abundance of food in the area between small bird and mammals that there is more than enough to go round for everything.

Grey Partridge had a very close call here in Ireland as they very nearly went extinct in recent years. The last two wild populations were found here and at another Bord na Mona bog in Lullymore, Co. Kildare. The partridge managed to just about hang on here due to the many "weeds" found growing along Bord na Mona railway lines which were used to transport the milled peat to the power station. These areas were thankfully never sprayed with herbicide. The Lullymore population eventually went extinct and the Boora population reached a worryingly low number of just 21 wild birds in 2001. It was decided to introduce wild birds from continental Europe as the population at that stage was unviable. Captive reared birds were released in Lullymore but these quickly died out as they had very little "street smarts" to survive long enough to reproduce. They are very short lived bird but do produce high numbers of young. Wet weather at the point of chick hatching can be detrimental to survival as they get wet and cold and can also suppress insects which is vital for young chicks. Predation at the time of incubation can also be bad news. The predator control is only carried out while the partridge are incubating and while the chicks are young. To carry it out year round is unnecessary and unwarranted. I believe the number of partridge now has passed the 1000 mark and is an incredible conservation success story. Birds from Boora have now been released in north Dublin so that a satellite population can be established.

I came across two coveys of partridge on one of the quiet roads while visiting on Saturday which gave good views from the car. You don't often get such good views it has to be said. I can remember seeing my first ever Grey Partridge at Finnamores in 1995 which is now a lake! The area around the Back Lakes (Boora and Tumduffbeg Lake) as we used to call it was very busy with a new visitor centre. All of the old railway lines have now largely been converted into bicycle tracks which are proving to be very popular with people. Back in the day you could spend the day down there and be lucky to just come across one or two Bord na Mona workers out on the bog.
Over the last 20 years the area has attracted a decent list of rarities which includes Black Kite, Montagu's Harrier, Hobby, Crane, Black-winged Stilt, Temminck's Stint, White-rumped Sandpiper, Long-billed Dowitcher and Red-necked Phalarope. A lot of these have been found by Tipperary based birder Pat Brennan who has been keeping an eye on the area for the last decade or more.

Male Grey Partridge

 

Male and female Grey Partridge with three young.

Partridge covey with a second covey in the background.

Female Grey Partridge with chicks.

Female Grey Partridge with chicks.

Common Buzzard with a young Rabbit.

Tour de North-West

Had a very productive weekend up in the North West over the weekend with Hugh Delaney. I met up with Hugh in Sligo and we headed North from there. The Lissadell Goose Field was the first stop of the day. A few hundred Barnacles and an assortment of duck were present but not the hoped for Cackling Goose. We moved onto the Ballintemple/Ballyconnell and found a smallish flock of Barnies just to the South East of the main crossroads and thankfully one of the Cackling Geese was present. It was a dark bird with no contrast between the breast and the flanks and also had a prominent white half collar at the base of the back neck sock. I didn't note if it had a black chin strap or not. The whole flock was quickly
purposely flushed by a farmer from the fields behind and although most of the flock relocated to the West we didn't see the Cackling again. I didn't manage any shots but it looks very like the same bird here http://www.sligobirding.com/October2012Gallery.html
We continued North from here and stopped off at Tullaghan, Co. Leitrim to have a look for the American Wigeon. Derek Charles and Majella Callaghan had seen the bird already on the day so we knew it was about.  We eventually picked it up amongst the rock pools at the outflow of the Drowes River with close to 30 Eurasian Wigeon. There were a few features that seemed a little odd at the time like the soft head pattern and a slightly darker breast but I think this may have been down to the dull light conditions and distance. I wouldn't think there are many previous records for County Leitrim of American Wigeon. The river here forms the border between Leitrim and Donegal and it has been seen on the Donegal side also.
I wanted to have a look at Killybegs given how scarce white-winged gulls have been in Galway so far this winter. I had yet to see either Iceland or Glaucous so far in 2013. One the way we past the first of four speed camera vans that we past in our 24 hours in Donegal - bit of overkill me thinks!
Killybegs was relatively quiet even though there were a few large trawlers offloading their catches. Most gulls were distant, Nimmo's Pier it isn't. In the end we saw about two first-winter, two second-winter and one third-winter Icelands, two first-winter and one second-winter Glaucous Gulls. The third-winter Iceland had some dark pigmentation to the subterminal part of the outer primaries but it failed to show much contrast between the outer and inner primaries so probably best left as Iceland. It did however show brown freckling to irides. Derek had a few more Icelands and Glaucous and also a first-winter Kumlien's Gull.
We had just enough time to visit Sheskinmore Lake for the white phase Snow Goose. We stumbled on the Snow Goose in the company of around two dozen Greenland White-fronted and a single Barnacle Goose in the field just between the pokey little bird hide and the lake itself. I don't think it's the same Snow Goose I found at Inch Island the previous winter on size as this bird was definitely smaller than the GWF's. The Inch bird approached Greylags in size. We had a quick look at Narin to finish off the day but no sign of the usual Long-tailed Ducks in the surf nor the flock of Barnacles out on Inishkeel.

The next morning found us on the causeway out to Inch Island. Just as we got out of the car an Otter surfaced right next to the road but disappeared promptly. Hugh quickly picked up the Bittern in amongst the reeds on the island side where it showed on and off for an hour and a half. This was the first Bittern I've managed to see on the ground in Ireland. Amazingly to see how quickly it would disappear behind such a small amount of vegetation once it stopped moving. We also had great views of the presumed returning male Smew from here but the light was dire and when it improved we were looking straight into the sun. We had a male Smew around an hour later at the other end of the lake. Hard to know if it was the same bird as earlier. Inch has had several Smew down through the years. There was a good flock of Whoopers and Greylags out on the levels with a flock of 15 Pink-feet being the best in amongst them.
We also had a look for the Cattle Egret at Saint Johnstown. It certainly wasn't present while we there although it returned a few days later. Nice to see a few Tree Sparrows here mixed in with the flock of Chaffinches. It's one in big demand for Galway listers with no known resident flocks in the county anymore.
Blanket Nook was also checked. We had a few feral Canada Geese with a small flock of Greylags in the fields on the way down which proved to be our eighth goose species of the weekend, not bad! While the lagoon was all quiet there was the usual Slavonian Grebes far offshore, at least half a dozen. Big Isle had a few hundred Greenland White-fronted Geese. On the way home we quickly checked Murvagh in Donegal Bay. Only a handful of distant Common Scoters there. We had checked Rossnowlagh on the way up the previous day and had no Scoter at all. Last site of the day was Rath Lough just inland of Ballintra. I've had Goosander here in the past but not today. There were some reported very nearby the same day that we only later heard of.

Barnacle Geese

Barnacle Geese

Barnacle Geese

First-winter Common Buzzard

First-winter Common Buzzard

Third-winter Iceland Gull

Third-winter Iceland Gull

Second-winter Glaucous Gull

Male Smew

Male Smew

Bittern

Bittern

Bittern

Buzzards at Lough Boora Parklands

I was back home last weekend to do a Soaring Buzzard Survey for the Irish Raptor Study Group just south of Athlone. I managed to get one bird just withing the 10km square along with 13 Kestrels and 2 Sparrowhawks. I had better views of Buzzards down at Lough Boora Parklands later.

Second calendar and adult Common Buzzard, Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly, 31st March..

Second calendar and adult Common Buzzard, Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly, 31st March..

Kestrel and adult Common Buzzard, Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly, 31st March..

Adult Common Buzzard, Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly, 31st March..

Adult Common Buzzard, Lough Boora Parklands, Co. Offaly, 31st March..