I had a nice day with my Dutch birding friends in Zeeland at the weekend. We started with a twitch to some terribly distant Dotterel which were just brown birds in flight but then moved to the harbour of Stellendam, where the mudflats were teeming with zillions of birds. Oystercatcher and Curlew were probably the most numerous waders, with several hundred of each, but we also counted at least 150 Spoonbill and 250 Sandwich Terns. A small group of Sanderling contained one bird still in summer plumage, as were a big group of Grey Plovers, and I managed to pick out one Bar-tailed Godwit from the masses of other birds present. The best birds, though, were an unusually confiding Rock Pipit and a pair of Caspian Terns, one adult and one juvenile, which appeared out of nowhere and sat on the nearest sandbank for us to admire. By the end of the day, we had tallied 63 species.
Yesterday, I made my first visit to my regular Brussels patch since May. There were much fewer species around of course but our female Ferruginous Duck is back again, having disappeared to parts unknown since early June and there was one Red-crested Pochard in eclipse plumage. There was also a colour-ringed Great Egret, which I presumed was the one which turns up there regularly but, having sent the details to the ringer, it turns out its a 1st-year Dutch bird ringed in the nest in South Holland, around 115km north of Brussels, just three months ago!
