28 Dec 25 - Turkey Or Goose For Post-Christmas

If we were talking food, it would be neither for me as a life-long vegetarian. However, if they are live, then Goose sounds the better option: especially, if they are part of a national influx of Tundra Bean Geese and White-fronted Geese. The Poole Harbour WeBS team had arranged a WeBS count at ten to get everybody off their sofas after the Christmas break. Soon after I got home from counting my Brands Bay section, my phone pinged to say that a flock of five Tundra Bean Geese had been found, along with a much larger flock of White-fronted Geese. They were feeding in a field on the Ridge to Arne road. I decided to defer lunch and I headed back out. I arrived just after one and the field was typically empty. I say this as I've passed that field many times in the last nearly thirty years of living locally and rarely seen anything in it. There were a few of the local Birders waiting. I parked up and joined them. The Geese had been there, but they were spooked by a plane and had disappearing onto the new pools on Arne Moors. After about five minutes, the first party of White-fronted Geese reappeared.

White-fronted Goose: These are the nominate albifrons subspecies which breed in North Russia, eastward to North East Siberia. They winter in Europe, South Asia, North India, South China & Japan

White-fronted Goose: White-fronted Geese use to regularly winter in Dorset & Hampshire in the 80s and I regularly saw flocks of up to two hundred and fifty in the Hampshire parts of the Avon Valley in the early 80s. Sadly, those numbers are a thing of the past, due to climate change and probably other factors like population numbers. There were still up to twenty-three visiting the Poole Harbour area in some years in the first decade of this century. However, those numbers have dwindled to erratic individuals in a good year, between several years of absence. Therefore, a flock of this size is noteworthy

White-fronted Goose: It was also good to see youngsters in the flock with their more uniform underparts, with the adults having barred bellies and more extensive white at the base of the bill

White-fronted Goose: This flock continued to increase in the first half of Jan when it peaked at forty-four individuals

White-fronted Goose: They are noticeably smaller than this presumed local Greylag Goose

Within a few minutes, the Tundra Bean Geese family dropped in along with the rest of the thirty-eight White-fronted Geese. We were at the start of a cold snap which clearly had been very hard in neighbouring Europe and there was an unprecedented arrival of the two species throughout Southern England.

Tundra Bean Goose

Tundra Bean Goose

Tundra Bean Goose

Barnacle Goose: Soon after this Barnacle Goose flew in to join the White-fronted Geese

Barnacle Goose: It's not unusual to see a flock of Barnacle Geese passing through Poole Harbour towards the Fleet in the last couple of decades. These flocks aren't annual, but they occur often enough these days to not be as noteworthy as the Tundra Bean Geese and White-fronted Geese

Barnacle Goose: This is an immature individual and presumably it arrived with the Tundra Bean Geese and White-fronted Geese. We sometimes have lone individuals appearing in Poole Harbour, however, they are typically adults

The remarkable thing is I've don't remember seeing Geese in this field in the past and after some Greylag Geese and Canada Geese flew in, I was watching five different species of Geese feeding in the field. I added a few Egyptian Geese on the next visit. It is one of two short grassy fields next to the extensive land management work that has been going on for over two years on the adjacent Arne Moors, to create new inter-tidal marshes which will help to alleviate flood risk in the forthcoming decades to Poole and Wareham. Hopefully, this will be the first of many interesting Bird sightings in this area in the next few years.

This unremarkable-looking field might be set to become a lot more interesting now Arne Moors is being improved

19 Feb 25 - Dutch Nuns

Pete Moore & I had had a good night's sleep & a decent breakfast at the Fletcher Hotel in De Koog on Texel on Day two of the Dutch Spectacled Eider twitch. There was time for a bit of Birding before we left the island. Plan A was to have a look to see if the Spectacled Eider was showing well. Pete had a look over the seawall, before quickly returning to confirm that it was even colder in the stronger on-shore wind, than on the previous day and none of the observers seemed to be watching it. There seemed to be little point in spending the limited time we had, to try relocating it.

An old style Dutch windmill

Plan B was to have a more leisurely drive back to the ferry and to catch the 10:00 ferry off the island. That would give us a bit more time on the mainland than if we had caught the next ferry an hour later. After a few stops to check Geese flocks and for a few tourist photos, we arrived a few minutes early at the ferry.

A large Brent Goose flock: There are about twenty-five Barnacle Geese and a few Greylag Geese in this flock

Two White-fronted Geese with a Greylag Goose

Many of the Dutch houses were photogenic

Even the more normal houses look good

Fort De Schans: This Fort has a Napoleonic look about it. It was commissioned by William of Orange had around 1574, to protect Texel and the channel past it from the Spaniards. It was later strengthened by Bonaparte in 1811, when it presumably took on the Napoleonic look. These days, the road is the same level as the top of the fort and the seawall towers above it

This was one of several buoys I saw, which were good at reflecting the maritime past

Cormorant: We had our eyes set on a more-interesting cousin

Within a few minutes, we were boarding the Texel ferry and thirty minutes later, we were in Den Helder.

The road from the ferry: This shows how low the land is compared to seawall

A replica of the Prins Willem in Den Helder: The original 17th Century Dutch East India Company ship made her maiden voyage to the Dutch East Indies in 1651. She sank near Madagascar in 1662 on a subsequent voyage. This replica was built in 1985, but it was badly destroyed by fire in 2009. After some rebuilding, the restoration was abandoned due to the cost

We were quickly through Den Helder and on the road to Lelystad. However, we took a quick detour to a channel near the village of Anna Paulowna to look for a flock of Smew.

Smew: Male. Initially, there were just three males & a couple of females present

Smew: Males are also called White Nuns, as their head pattern reminded Birders of a nun's white wimple

Smew: Females are often called Redheads by Birders (for obvious reasons)

Smew: The females have a lot of white in the inner wing

Smew: Another female showing off her wing pattern

Smew: Two males with a female

Smew: Males: After a few minutes, the males started displaying

Smew: Once the males started displaying, additional males and a female arrived, until there were seven males and three females

Smew: This female responded with a bit of head bobbing

Smew: In the end there were three females in the group

Smew: Males

Smew: Displaying males

Smew: Males. It was good to see these males as the last male Smew I saw in Dorset was in 2012

Smew: The males have a good head shape when seen face on

Smew: More responses from one of the females

Smew: The males were sometimes distracted with moving each other on, rather than displaying to the females

Smew: The highlight of the display was this almost vertical stretch

Smew: A final stretch from these two males. We were conscious that time was rolling on & we needed to get going, if Pete was to get into Amsterdam at the time he had promised to meet the family

It was a thirty minute drive to reach Enkhuizen, after leaving the Smew site. This is the start of a twenty-one mile raised causeway which crosses between the Ijsselmeer on the left and the Markermeer on the right of the road. Some parts of the causeway are just a raised road, but other parts are protected by a seawall. It's an outstanding piece of large-scale construction.

Part of the raised causeway between Enkhuizen and Lelystad: Going the long way around would force you through Amsterdam and easily add another hour to the journey

Finally, we arrived at the Nature Park on the edge of Lelystad. I will cover this in the next Blog Post.

18 Feb 25 - Geese Galore On Texel

This is part two of the day on Texel twitching the Dutch male Spectacled Eider. Having had good scope views and taken mediocre photos on the choppy seas in the first half of the afternoon, we headed out in search of Geese. Not a hard target, given there are many thousands of them on Texel. Our first Bird stop was for a small party of Fieldfares feeding on the seawall.

Fieldfare

Fieldfare: I was surprised about how few Passerines we saw on Texel during the day: this was the highlight

A Dutch trip wouldn't be complete without some windmill photos

Another view of the same windmill: In case, there is a Dutch law of having to put windmills in any article or Blog about Holland

The first field of Geese we stopped at, proved to be a large flock of Brent Geese.

Brent Geese: This is only about a quarter of the flock

Brent Goose: This was one of three Brent Geese that were close to the road in another field

It didn't take us to find a large field of mainly Barnacle Geese.

Barnacle Goose: This was just part of a large Barnacle Goose flock that filled the whole field

A mixed Goose party: At the front of the Barnacle Goose flock was a real mixed Goose group, with an Egyptian Goose, two Greylag Geese, a Barnacle Goose and some White-fronted Geese (left to right)

Another large field, but this time it was mainly White-fronted Geese.

White-fronted Goose: These are the nominate albifrons subspecies which breed in North Russia and East to North East Siberia. They Winter from Europe to Southern Asia, North India, South China & Japan

White-fronted Goose: A closer crop

Many old Dutch houses have high, steep roofs which will maximise the number of rooms

As we that thawed out from the morning's bitterly cold wind, Pete was keen for another look at the Spectacled Eider in the late afternoon as the sun would be behind us. The light was better, but the Spectacled Eider was further out, due to the dropping tide. Despite the better light, I couldn't improve on the photos from the morning.

Brent Geese: This massive flock flew over as they were heading to roost

We decided to start heading towards our accommodation for the evening. There were more fields of Geese to check in the last of the sunlight. There should have been a few Tundra Bean Geese on the island, but finding them without detailed directions hadn't proved easy, given the large numbers of Geese-filled fields to check.

The sun finally set on an excellent day's Birding: It was time to head off to our hotel in De Koog

The sun might have given up for the day, but these Geese hadn't. They were still busily feeding in the fading light.

Barnacle Geese: With some White-fronted Geese in the penultimate field that we checked

White-fronted Goose

Greylag Goose: There were a couple of Greylag Geese with a White-fronted Goose in the foreground and some distant Barnacle Geese

A final post-sunset Geese flock: This party of White-fronted Geese with a couple of Greylag Geese were nicely lined up with the very last post-sunset glow

I had sorted out a room in the Fletcher in De Koog on the West side of Texel. I had hoped to be greeted by a life-sized statue of the most famous Fletcher in the foyer, but perhaps Ronnie Barker wasn't as well-known in Holland. It was a reasonable-priced hotel with a good breakfast, given Texel accommodation is not cheap. We briefly looked at the restaurant, before heading out to the Burgers, Beers & Blues restaurant that Pete had spotted as we walked from a nearby Lidl car park. We both reckoned this was a much better option for the evening meal.