I was supposed to be going Latvia earlier this month for Blyth's Reed Warbler and a few other species I've not yet seen. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic put paid to that but the warblers took pity and decided to stage an unprecented invasion into The Netherlands and the UK. Strangely, only one was found in Belgium and that only stayed for a couple of hours, so I decided to give the one singing in a park in Amsterdam a try. Despite four separate visits over the course of two days and a total of at least five hours waiting at the spot, all I got was a glimpse of a very grey-looking Acrocephalus, which I think was probably it, but without it singing and with lots of Marsh Warblers around, it wasn't enough to be sure. Inevitably, after we'd given up and moved on elsewhere, the bird was seen singing, but I really enjoyed visiting the above location, known as De Putten bij Petten. This area has recently been re-landscaped and the Sandwich Terns have very much found the new islands to their liking, as you can see from the big white blob in the centre.
With such a dense mass of birds, they were impossible to count but I estimated at least 2000 Sandwich Terns, with smaller numbers of Common Terns on the surrounding 'atoll'. Such a concentration of terns is rare on the mainland and had attracted an adult Roseate Tern, probably the same one which had been on Texel and which we got to see well thanks to an eagle-eyed observer picking it out from the crowd. There were also a few waders around, including both Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, and some very young baby Avocets.
A nice surprise was finding a pair of Bluethroats which seemed to be breeding in the dunes, with the male perching on a fencepost and showing off its colours while my camera was still in my bag. We then moved on to the dunes around Castricum, which is the Dutch stronghold of the endangered Niobe Fritillary, one of which we eventually got to see having spent ages chasing another fritillary which turned out to be a Queen of Spain.
