Those who know me, know that i am not enthusiastic about either sports or religious gatherings, yet, i did take part in something like that in an event, a spin-off of the Kifl the Kid Salon, presently at Billytown (Click here to see an earlier report about the Kifl the Kid Salon) .
At Kifl the Kid Salon spontaneous events are being organised and one of them was Robbin Heykers Vogelclub (“Robbin Heyker’s Birding Club”), featuring Arjan Dwarshuis, the man who saw 6852 different bird species in 2016 during a world trip.
The event was in two parts; a film evening featuring Arjan’s Big Year, in which you can see Dwarshuis crisscrossing the world, watching and counting birds, anything feathered in between ostriches and hummingbirds.
The second part was a birding excursion at Meijendel, the coastal dunes near The Hague, led by Dwarshuis.
It was an exceptionally good morning to see bird migration, described by Dwarshuis as “just as spectacular as the big game migration in Eastern Africa,” except that few people in this country seem to be aware of that.
With a moderate south-eastern wind, conditions were very good according to Dwarshuis, which proved to be true.
Dwarshuis surely made us – a small bunch of artists and art-bugs for whom looking and seeing (watching) are cardinal activities – see loads of birds, especially in the sky, but also in the scrubs and in the water, usually unseen, even by artists and the like.
It was indeed extraordinarily exceptional, especially in the beginning of the morning when the sky was full of thousands of migrating birds.
What did we see?
Well, we saw: redwing (loads), fieldfare (loads), song thrush (loads), mistle thrush, blackbird, robin, stonechat, chaffinch, brambling, hawfinch, greenfinch, siskin,
goldfinch, linnet, redpoll, reed bunting, tree sparrow, great tit, blue tit, long-tailed tit,
jackdaw, carrion crow, jay, magpie, starling (double loads), treecreeper, wren,
goldcrest, firecrest, chiffchaff, blackcap, Cetti’s warbler, dunnock, grey wagtail, pied wagtail,
house martin (just one), sky lark, great spotted woodpecker, green woodpecker,
wood pigeon, stock dove, kingfisher, kestrel, sparrow hawk, goshawk,
buzzard, great white heron, grey heron, spoonbill, herring gull, common gull, black-headed gull,
lesser black-backed gull, common snipe, coot, mallard, tufted duck, pochard, red-crested pochard,
great crested grebe, little grebe, greylag goose, white-fronted goose, pink-footed goose,
cormorant, and i probably missed out a few.
Without being a conspiracy thinker, one can easily state that that very morning the sky was full with the of spectacular phenomenon but unseen by those who are not woke.
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© Villa Next Door 2020
Contents of all photographs courtesy to all participants and Billytown, The Hague; special thanks to Robbin Heyker and Arjan Dwarshuis.
Bertus Pieters
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