Christmas birding highlights

A good tradition, birding Afsluitdijk between Christmas and newyear. We chose to ignore several new birds for our Dutch lists, bought 3 breads and were aiming for Iceland Gull. The Glaucous Gull was still present in Harlingen but seemed a bit lazy, it preferred swimming instead of flying to the bread. Later on the day it was caught by hand so it may have been in bad condition.

Social pressure resulted in twitching the long-staying Lesser Yellowlegs but it was well worth the visit, an extremely confiding bird!

More birders than birds at Vatrop, actually only 1 bird present!

A Grey Phalarope was displaced by the storm several weeks ago, and was also still present along the IJsselmeer. Simply amazing that these tiny birds prefer to winter on the open ocean.

 
Of course we did not find any Iceland Gull at Harlingen, Kornwerderzand, Breezanddijk and Den Oever. We did see 10-thousands Greater Scaups, Snow Bunting, several Red-throated Divers and 2 Black Brants.