The bird had been present for a month before Bradders called. To be fair he'd floated the idea of a weekend on Texel at the end of January but as I'd said I was out of the game until late February I'd assumed he would have gone already. But he hadn't, and he had also cleverly remembered that my next free weekend was the 22nd February. Was I still free he enquired? Well yes, I was. But I will tell you now that having yet another weekend away was the very last thing I wanted at that particular moment in time. Putting common sense, reason and matrimonial harmony to one side I said yes immediately.
Plans were put into action, ferry tickets were booked, electric vehicle charging locations were pinpointed (a whole new game). After work on Friday I took a train out to Colchester, and from there was electrically chauffeured to Harwich and onto one of the largest ferries I'd ever seen, and what seemed like a few moments later we arrived at the Hook of Holland. I've never slept so well on a boat, the Shetland ferries feel like tubs in comparison. I couldn't even feel the engine vibrations and slept like a baby the whole way across.
Part of my motivation for coming on this little outing was that my only other Eurotwitch, also to Holland and also with Bradders, had been before eBird. As such I'd had to recreate historical lists based on photographs and blog posts which tend not to feature iconic birds like Dunnocks and Starlings. Returning armed, as it were, would make up for this grave 2016 oversight and as such I was out on deck with the app running as the ship came into dock. I added nothing.
With the required charging break we made it to the Den Helder ferry for the 11.30am sailing and were on Texel for midday. It was a short drive north to the relevant sea wall and shortly afterwards we were watching 'the boy'. When the Spectacled Eider first turned up the scenes from Texel were extraordinary. I was sent a video with no context, all I saw were more birders in one place than I have ever seen before. It turned out to be all of Europe's twitchers descending on Texel on the first available weekend. Bradders and I had played it very cool indeed and consequently we ended up watching it with perhaps six other people. It was reasonably distant so we were unlucky on that front, but through the scope the views were fine. As you can see from my photograph it was possibly slightly out of range for my camera..... It seemed in fine fettle, though, associating with a small flock of Common Eider, diving and preening and generally being very Eider-y. I love it when a plan comes together.
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| Spectacled Eider |
The only slight wrinkle in the plan was the deteriorating weather. It was looking very gloomy indeed, one of those days where dusk arrives at about 2pm and refuses to leave. We made the best of it, birding the flat landscape and enjoying the quite ridiculous numbers of geese - Barnacles, Greater White-fronts, Brents and Greylags. And of course adding to our burgeoning Netherlands life lists with various waders, ducks and passerines. Eventually however we had to admit defeat, the weather was unpleasant and unbirdable, and we decided to leave Texel and head back south. We made a short stop at a canal near the Amstelmeer which had at a minimum 24 Smew in it, itself remarkable given how you rarely see more than one in the UK and that's if you make an effort. A little further south at Alkmaar we then dipped Baikal Teal and Ring-necked Duck. Nevermind, out of the three rare ducks we felt had dipped the correct ones.
The next day the weather was much improved, not yet wonderful, but significantly better. Birdable better. We were staying in Almere and with listing very much in mind headed off to some local woodland to see what we might find. I say listing, what I really meant was cool Woodpeckers that are not found in the UK, namely Middle-spotted and Black Woodpecker. We found both of these at the very lovely Goois Natuurreservaat Spanderswoud along with clouds of Siskin, Brambling and Chaffinch. If you have not seen one let me put it on record that Black Woodpeckers are sensational. For starters they are enormous. And very black. And very loud. Once we had heard it call it did not take us long to track it down.
The rest of the day was spent alternating between Natuurpark Lelystad and the Oostvaarderplassen. The former hosted an extremely mobile and irritating Pygmy Cormorant, hence the alternating. Not an impressive bird but a very rare one this far west. We eventually got it at our second attempt having missed it by a matter of minutes several times during our first visit. I wonder if one will ever make it as far as the UK?
The latter was an immense gathering of geese and a scattering of eagles. Generally the geese did the gathering and the Eagles took care of the scattering. This was far more satisfying than chasing a small Cormorant around a series of small lakes, mind-bogglingly so actually, with vast numbers of wildfowl and waders. In addition to several White-tailed Eagle we were also treated to a fly-through Goshawk, a Hen Harrier, several Kestrels and a Marsh Harrier. Both wild Swans were present, as well as Spoonbill, and a short distance away were Scaup, Lesser Scaup, Goosander and a Jack Snipe. Excellent birding, and we spent until dusk here before heading back for the Sunday evening sailing to Harwich.
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| A small fraction of the geese present |
So that was the weekend that ideally I would have spent at home. I am glad I went though, winter birding in The Netherlands is fantastic and that is also likely my only chance at Spectacled Eider. And it is only a couple of days, any angst I might have felt at the time is long gone, and I'm largely caught up on almost all of things I postponed. And as you already know I did subsequently manage a day at home the following weekend. Yay! But only after I'd been to France for a day....
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