A bird I’d never dreamed I would ever see but we had to hold our nerve because domestic issues meant we had to wait a whole 3 weeks after it was found until we could go.
We made daily checks of the Waarneming.nl website to check it was still there and then on Friday 31 January one last positive check and we were on! So with Jus and Andrew we set off from Norfolk that evening and drove through the night via ‘Le Shuttle’. Arriving in North Holland soon after first light the weather was icy with freezing fog so we delayed our crossing to Texel while we waited for the sun to burn the fog off. That time was put to good use as we popped in to the town of Beverwijk to look for the wintering adult Glaucous Gull there. We found it almost immediately resting on top of a lamppost in a run down dock area. Interestingly it was sporting rings which have confirmed it was ringed on Svalbard. It was also probably the biggest Glauc I have ever seen - a real beast!
With the fog then clearing we made haste north to Den Helder to catch the ferry onto Texel, timing it just right to catch the 10.30 crossing. A 20 minute crossing and a 15 minute drive later we reached the spot near Oosterend on the east side of the island. Slinging the car onto a convenient space on the verge we made it up onto the seawall and after a short walk north ‘bang’- we were watching the male Spectacled Eider. It’s difficult to explain the feeling but suffice to say we were quite happy! This isn’t just any seaduck either, a real looker to go with its immense rarity value. We had our fill after a while adding 2000+ Common Eider, 1 Common Scoter, 5 Black-necked Grebes and 1 Red-breasted Merganser. Just south along the same stretch of coast we then stopped to examine a field absolutely full of geese. It held c50 Tundra Bean Geese plus Barnacle Geese, Brent Geese, Greylag Geese and c300 Russian White-fronted Geese. Talking to an English guy there he told us about a site on the other side of the island called De Slufter which he described as ‘a bit like Holkham but without the c**ts’ and it had some potential goodies there so we altered our plans and decided to spend longer on Texel than originally intended. De Slufter turned out to be just as he described and after a walk through the dunes to the edge of the salt marsh in the bay we scored with c50 Shorelarks, c25 Twite (together in a mixed flock), a ringtail Hen Harrier and amongst the common wildfowl on the water the bizarre sight of an Emperor Goose! With time getting away from us and little time to do anything else if we left the island we decided to go and have another gawp at the Spectacled Eider. We found it a little closer and in better light which was nice (as were the stroopwafels kindly offered to us by some young Dutch birders we met). A solitary Spoonbill in a roadside dyke was a good way to finish the days birding as we made our way back to the ferry as sunset approached.
We booked a real last minute accommodation deal in Den Helder on Booking.com and it turned out to be excellent. Right by the marina and historic quay area with a fantastic bar just a few yards away and plenty of options to eat. The local ‘Texels’ beer and pizza went down particularly well that evening!
Sunday dawned icy cold but sunny again. We’d made plans to see a few more goodies during the day before making our was back to Calais.
First on the agenda was a drake Baikal Teal at a site just north of Alkmaar. It took a little while to locate in the frigid conditions as most of the dykes were frozen but some passing Dutch birders kindly stopped with some directions. Following those we quickly found the bird with a mixed flock of Gadwall, Mallard, Wigeon and Shelduck about a mile away from where we’d been looking!
Then out was a bit of a drive to our next stop at Lelystad in Flevoland. We had intended driving over the causeway across the IJsselmeer but that was closed so we had to go south and around the south side of Amsterdam. Natuurpark Lelystad is a site of lagoons set in woodland and was a lovely spot. Our target, the wintering Pygmy Cormorant gave us the run around for a while but eventually gave in to some good if quite distant views. As we spent quite a bit of time there it allowed us to see a few other bits and pieces. A big surprise were 2 European Bison in the woods! These are part of a breeding and reintroduction scheme and not ‘tickable’ but nonetheless fantastic to see. It’s always nice to see things on the continent that we don’t get at home so Short-toed Treecreeper was a good one to catch up with and one responded well to a recording allowing me to get some photos. Also around the reserve we saw/heard 8 Smew, Kingfisher, Cetti’s Warbler, Great White Egret, Water Rail and Common Buzzard of note.
Having spent so much time at Lelystad it became obvious we weren’t going to get halfway back to Calais with enough time or daylight to see a Pacific Diver but we had one more site much closer we wanted to visit - Spanderswoud near Hilversum. I’d been given details of Black Woodpeckers there by the carpark but when we arrived in mid-afternoon the place was rammed with cars, people and dogs so we pretty much knew we were doomed! We added just Great Spotted Woodpecker and Siskin there before quitting the scene.
The long drive back was livened up with many Great White Egrets (we’d been seeing them all weekend) plus a single Black Swan and c10 Cattle Egrets near Utrecht.
We got back to Calais in time for our 20.20 tunnel booking and I was back home in Pulham by 11.15 - tired but happy! It had been a splendid couple of days and with perfect weather and good craic - just the tonic we all needed. Oh, and the small matter of a world tick!
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