January 8 - 16

 Back working at our school meant less time for birding. As a rule of thumb, winter birding means great progress in the first week and stuggling for species after that until March. I still managed to add some decent species this week:

On the ferry I saw a Razorbill on January 9. It's perhaps up for debate whether or not I can count a bird seen from our ferry connecting my island with the mainland, since it burns fossil fuel, but for the sake of discussion I put it on the list. Discussion followed indeed with Arnold Meijer, suggesting that using a plane would be the same thing. I disagree, but can happily announce that today, January 16 I discovered perhaps the same bird in the bay next to the ferry port (Mokbaai, in English Bay of Mug?). 

On January 12 it proved to be a very nice and sunny afternoon. A Red-throated Diver flew past the watch point close to the village (NIOZ) and in the afternoon, my girlfriend, our dog and I made a long walk trying for species such as Tree Sparrow and Kingfisher. Both were nowhere to be found, but I did find a Little Grebe. This species is not uncommon but this was the nearest location I could think of. A group of fly-by Tundra Bean Geese were also still new for the yearlist. When we were almost back home I heard a White Wagtail calling. I soon picked up the flying bird with my binoculars and it landed on a field between some Egyptian Geese. It proved to be an 'alba' White Wagtail, quite scarce this winter.

On January 13 we travelled to work on our bikes and this resulted in my first bike-species of the year. Three Common Pochards were floating on a small stretch of water associated with a 18th century fortification. Today, January 16 I also connected with them for my walk-only list. Our training run after work resulted in another addition for the yearlist (after Jack Snipe on January 3): we flushed a European Woodcock from a hedge along our route for my 100th species of the year!

Purple Sandpiper - NIOZ-field on January 14

On January 15 I spent an enjoyable morning birding with some old friends by car. The species are naturally not on the yearlist but we saw some good birds despite the thick fog. Nineteen Twite were a treat and one of our island birders, Job ten Horn, found a probable 'blythi' Lesser Whitetroat that we managed to twitch. We also found 2 Black Brants and 1 Pale-bellied Brent Goose, one of our wintering Black Guillemots and more good birds. A fun day that ended with beer in the evening.

Twitch of putative Siberian Lesser Whitethroat

January 16 gave me some time to make a dash for an area not visited before: Horsmeertjes, two freshwater lakes on the southern end of the island. It meant a 9km walk and three targets were easily found in quick succession: Common Pochard, Smew (1 female at 'Horsmeertjes' and amazingly 3 more in 'Mokbaai') and Bearded Reedling. Smew is a rather difficult species on Texel, occurring erraticly and usually only possible in January, February and December. Good to have it on the list. The reedbeds on the southern shore of 'Mokbaai' is home to the only population of this species for the whole island.