It has been a quiet month so far, spending my time in Paris working from home and not doing much birding, only eyeing up the local Ring-necked Parakeets and common birds outside the window. But some exciting birding news broke on Monday the 13th When a drake Spectacled Eider was found on the island of Texel in the Netherlands. A bird from the high arctic between Alaska and Russia, it is a tricky bird to see anywhere in the world, so this individual presented a golden opportunity to see one, especially a drake. We weighed up our options and with the bird still present on Friday, we decided to make a move, hire a car and spend the weekend on Texel to get the bird seen.
We left Paris at
05:00 on Saturday morning and drove the seven hours to Texel. Frustratingly no
news of the bird came out until we were almost at the ferry terminal before
midday, due to it being elusive in thick fog. Once we had arrived on the island
we went straight to the location where it was being seen, but it was a foggy
scene that opened before our eyes. In this gloom it took some time before the
bird finally appeared, but it was distant and badly obscured by the fog. It was
good to meet Tim Marlow there, who let me look through his scope at the bird
since I did not have mine, it being back in the UK.
With the conditions
showing no signs of improving we decided to call it a day and try again the following
day. On Sunday morning I arrived at the site before first light to find the fog
had mercifully lifted. In the early morning gloom I eventually picked up the
bird flying south, before some dutch birders found it swimming on the sea. It
was still distant but it was nice to see the bird clearly at last.
In the afternoon I
returned for a third visit, with the early morning gloom fully lifted and the
bird significantly closer, it was finally a good opportunity to watch it and
appreciate it. The Eider was frequently diving for crabs and crunching them
down, and huge thanks to Jonathan Mercer, a Gloucestershire birder I met there
who let me use his scope and his teleconverter to get some photos and have
excellent views of the bird. It really is a stunning individual, and well worth
the effort of going to see.
Besides the Eider
there was some fantastic birding to be had all across Texel. Alongside the
eider were a few Black-necked Grebes, a few Greater Scaups and overhead were
constant flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese, Barnacle Geese and Brent Geese.
These same species we regularly encountered in fields as we drove past, alongside Egyptian Geese and numerous species of common wildfowl. The waterways
across the island had Spoonbills, Curlew and Turnstone frequenting them, and we
saw two ringtail Hen Harriers quartering across the open fields. An absolutely
brilliant place for birding.
On the Monday we set
off back for Paris, but on the way we called off at a location just north of
Alkmaar to try to find the winter Baikal Teal. Sadly in the 90 minutes we had it
was impossible to find the bird, although it did not help that it was in
another location that we only got to with about 10 minutes to spare, where
other birders told us it had just left. Still, exploring the various ditches in the area was enjoyable, with highlights including another group of Greater
White-fronted Geese and a Woodcock. All this before we endured the grueling
seven-hour drive back to Paris, in combination with Paris rush-hour traffic.
Texel: Greylag Goose, Greater White-fronted Goose, Brent Goose, Barnacle Goose, Common Shelduck, Mandarin Duck, Northern Shoveler, Eurasian Wigeon, Mallard, Greater Scaup, Spectacled Eider, Common Eider, Common Goldeneye, Red-breasted Merganser, Eurasian Collared Dove, Common Wood Pigeon, Common Moorhen, Eurasian Coot, Pied Avocet, Eurasian Oystercatcher, European Golden Plover, Northern Lapwing, Eurasian Curlew, Common Redshank, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, Black-headed Gull, Common Gull, European Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Great Crested Grebe, Black-necked Grebe, Great Cormorant, Eurasian Spoonbill, Grey Heron, Hen Harrier, Eurasian Magpie, Western Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Great Tit, Eurasian Wren, Common Starling, Redwing, Common Blackbird, Fieldfare, European Robin, Dunnock, House Sparrow, Eurasian Chaffinch,
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