(Chronicle of an unusual days
birding)
It all
started with a message in our local group’s WhatsApp group last Wednesday – one
of the group was going to Holland to photograph the Siberian Rubythroat that
has been there since the 15th of January, and there was a seat
available should anyone be interested.
Locally,
things have been very quiet over the last few days – nothing since the Bewick’s
Swans on Wallasea Island, and I’d be returning to Spain the following week, so
although a ‘EuroTwitch’ isn’t normally my sort of thing, I got to thinking
about it.
Siberian
Rubythroat – always considered the pinnacle of birding when I was younger, with
few records in the UK, the majority of which have been on the northern isles
(Shetlands, Fair Isle) and extremely few on the mainland (only two I think), and hardly ever twitchable. I would love to see one, but to do so, would
have to go to Asia or Siberia (no plans at present to do so!), or possibly
spend a month on Shetland or Fair Isle in the autumn (again, no plans to do so,
and would be very expensive).
Or, jump in
someone else's car, be chauffeur driven to the site, see the bird and come back
again, all within a day.
As you can
tell, I didn’t take much persuading!
So, Friday evening
at 9:15 saw me being collected from home by Steve Arlow of our local group (SOG
– Southend Ornithological Group - http://www.sognet.org.uk).
We then met up with Brett Spencer and Richard Bonser (who was to be our driver
for the trip), and caught the first Channel Tunnel train just after midnight to
Calais (which in itself was a new experience for me).
On a cold
but dry night with various stops, we got to the site of the Rubythroat (Hoogwoud) just
before eight in the morning (local time), parking just around the corner from
where it has been seen. As there was only
a slight slither of light on the horizon, both Rich and I decided to make the
most of being stopped, and take a half-hour’s nap in the car. Steve and Brett went out to survey the site,
but within 5 minutes were back at the car – the Rubythroat was showing!
I should
perhaps point out here that we had been told that normally it has been seen for 5 minutes, then
disappearing for about a half hour before returning to the same area. Also, the weather forecast for the day was
not particularly good – overcast (with possibility of snow) to begin, clearing after
midday. So knowing that it was out and
about already, it HAD to be seen while we knew it was there! So, that was our power-sleep out of the
window!
And so much
for its habits – apart from 2 periods of about 20 minutes when it disappeared,
once with a Robin and the other time chased off by a Blackbird, it hung around
the same area all the time! And apart
from the area being in shadow to start with, it was pretty much a sunny morning
all morning. The four of us (and all the
other Dutch birders who passed by) had SUPERB views of the bird, with it coming
out into the open down to less than a metre (too close for some of the big lens's to focus), and for a period of just under 10
minutes, we had it in a bush singing! Sufficient for me to say that even the photographers Steve and
Rich, who specifically wanted to see the bird to photograph it, had seen enough
by about 11:30, and so we decided to go off and see if we could find some other
birds. Both Steve and Rich, who have both seen Rubythroats in the UK and abroad before, said it was the best sighting they´d ever had.
Rich had all
the details of another bird on his WP birds wishlist, which we gave
ourselves five minutes to find and watch – Alexandrine Parakeet in a park in
the centre of Amsterdam. Once we’d found
the park (Oosterpark) and had parked up, it DID only take about 5 minutes. The park is full of Rose-ringed Parakeets,
but also has a self-sustaining population of these Alexandrine Parakeets which
look very similar to the Rose-ringed, but are larger with a much chunkier bill.
So within 15
minutes of arriving at the park, we were back on the road again.
As part of
my preparation for the trip, I had printed out map locations of various other
birds that I thought we may have found of interest, and we decided to go for
one of them, about halfway back towards Calais (i.e. on our way home), at a
coastal site called Wilhelminadorp, where a female Pine Bunting has taken up winter
residence and has been seen since the 18th December 2015. Arriving at the location at around two in the
afternoon, we were lucky enough to bump into a birder who could give us the
exact location, and after some 15 minutes scrutinizing the area, we had the
bird. It was acting like a mouse,
running around the upper high tide limit where a lot of broken canes had
floated, and appeared to be eating the canes in order to get to any insects
that had taken up residence in the stems.
It was another bird that seemed very confident in the presence of
humans, being photographed at down to just over a metre, and again in all the
time we watched it, it only disappeared into the grassy area out of view a
couple of times for a few minutes.
Eventually, we lost the sun behind a large grey cloud and the bird flew
off giving a single metallic call as it flew, (nothing like a Yellowhammer’s). It flew over the seawall to the area where we
were parked, but we couldn’t get back on it, so decided to call it a day –
excellent views of two very smart birds, plus the parakeet in between!
And our luck
remained with us as the weather now turned nasty as we headed back to
Calais. When we got there, we were far
too early for our booked train, but were allowed to catch the one one-and-a-half
hours before our scheduled train for no extra charge (and in actual fact, by
mistake we caught an earlier one still), so I was back home at just after 9:35
pm – just over 24 hours – and at a total cost of £50!
So my thanks
to my companions, Steve, Brett and especially Rich for the driving and the use of his car, and for an
excellent days birding which I will remember for a long, long time to come!
The photos:
Siberian Rubythroat (Calliope calliope) - Hoogwoud, Netherlands
Alexandrine Parakeet - Oosterpark, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Pine Bunting - Wilhelminadorp, Netherlands
The videos:
