The Flatlands - Holland

13-16 February 2018
A family trip to Amsterdam and I managed a morning off museum duty to do a bit of birding. I choose the worst day of the trip and as I headed away from the capital the weather got progressively worse, drizzle accompanied by fog ! My destination was Flevoland and in particular the drive round Ooostvaardersplassen. This area of wetland fields and marsh forms part of the "polder country" and is quite a unique habitat. Sometime reminiscent of Norfolk, especially the weather. But less than an hour from Amsterdam and so it was a must for a morning birding.

With some gen from James Lidster I was on my way to look for Smew and some geese. Driving the N701 with biting winds and poor visibility I stopped where I could in search of Smew and eventually found a few. Also some Goosander.

The area James suggested for geese was empty so I decided to drive round as many of the small roads as possible scanning the fields. After an hour I gave up and headed back to Amsterdam, but luckily just before joining the main trunk road back I came across several fields full of geese. Barnacle, White-fronts, Taiga Beans and Greylags...... and lots of them. In the increasing gloom I watched these birds for about a half hour before conditions had me closing the windows and heading back.

It had been a good morning birding despite the gloom and as I returned the skies became progressively better until as I caught the train back into Amsterdam around 4pm it turned into bright sunshine, similar to the entire rest of the trip. Blimey I can pick the days !