Wednesday, January 30, 2013

NL day 1 - American Wigeon!

Left UK this morning - after surviving heavy traffic on the A1 and M25. Just as I landed at Schiphol I got a message from Gert Ottens, who was on his way to pick me up from the train: "Do you want to see an American Wigeon?"... Hell yes! So from the airport we drove more or less direct to the Nederrijn river near Wijk bij Duurstede, where this bird was found on Saturday. We got on to the bird immediately as it was swimming in the middle of the river with some wigeons and goldeneyes. Cool bird, lifer, WP tick and completely surprising - I really wasn't expecting it! Here are some more crappy record shots - distant, no light, rain, wind etc.

American Wigeon - male 


Later on Gert and I went birding in that valley. There were tons of geese about - something like 5000 barnacles and maybe 1000 whitefronts. Very very nice.


Among them we had some Bar-headed Geese - this valley is one of their strongholds in Holland. Category C, I know, but good-looking birds nevertheless.

Bar-headed Geese

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