WINTER BIRDS IN HOLLAND; WHAT A DIFFERENCE 20* LATITUDE MAKES
A week ago I wrote about the first days of the new year in Tromsoe, at 70* N: very little daylight, few land birds, and a year list after a few days of all of 8 bird species. In the days after that I saw one Great Tit and 2 Blue Tits, as well as a small flock of Bohemian Waxwings, so the list grew all the way to 11 bird species. And then I flew to Holland to visit Riet and celebrate my sister’s 80-years day.
I have described Riet’s home and garden before. It is a house in a row, with a small garden in front and behind, and neighbours on one side who have no interest in gardening, so have paved over most of theirs. She lives in the village of Odijk close to Utrecht, almost in the middle of the Netherlands, a low-lying area of fields and orchards, with the small river Kromme Rijn, which was the main outlet of the Rhine in Roman times, but which now is a backwater. It is a green village, and the first impression of a birder is always the large number of Blackbirds (there may be tens of large lawns), and of Jackdaws (There may be hundreds in the air at the same time—Jackdaws are extremely social).
Riet’s back garden is maybe 10×5 sq.m, with a small lawn in the middle, and lots of plants–she is an avid gardener. There is a quite large, though heavily pruned oak in a corner, a holly and an Amelanchier, and the fences towards the neighbours are totally overgrown with ivy. She feeds the birds in winter.
Compared to my much larger garden in Tromsoe there are amazingly many birds in Riet’s garden. There are always a few Blackbirds–even though the dominant male tries to chase all the others away—, a few Great and Blue Tits and several House Sparrows and Chaffinches (almost all males).There are also very frequently Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves, as well as Jackdaws and Magpies.In the one day that I ave been here, I have additionally seen Tree Sparrows, Greenfinches and a Great Spotted Woodpecker, while Riet tells me that there are also regularly Robins, Winter Wrens, Nuthatches and now and then Long-tailed Tits. And I have seen Carrion Crows, Jays, Black-headed Gulls and Greylag Geese fly over the garden. The weather is cool, with light nightfrost last night—it rained the day before.
I walked around the village this morning, and that adds quite a number of further birds: in the Kromme Rijn there are Mallard, Pochard, Coots, Moorhen, Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe and Dabchick, as well as the by now omnipresent Egyptian Geese., and Black-headed and Common Gulls. On the soccer fields a loose flock of Redwings and Song Thrushes foraged, and a tight flock of Siskins swept into an alder tree. A pair of Dunnocks was bathing in a gutter, discovered while I was admiring a flowering Hamamelis in a garden in the middle of the village. So my year list climbed from 11 to 44 bords, ‘without really trying’. And the coming weekend will no doubt augment that with another 25 or so, even though it will mostly be filled with family business.
The difference between 70 and 53*N is enormous, and that is most evident in winter.
Wim Vader, Tromsoe Museum
9037 Tromsoe, Norway
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