Winter bird counts (1 Viewer)

[Annie H]

Hello

I visited the Netherlands in the winter of 1988-89, particularly to see the geese and waders. I have information about the numbers of wildfowl and waders at various sites, eg Oostvaardersplassen and Lauwersmeer, at that time (BirdLife data is 1986-91). I would really like to know what the numbers of birds are these days. If anyone can point me in the direction of a website with this information, I'd really appreciate it. So far I've only been able to find species lists.

Thank you
Annie
(WeBS coordinator for Pembrokeshire, so I have an interest in counts for these groups)

 

[Andrew Whitehouse]

Welcome to BirdForum Annie. Have you had a look on the Waarneming site?
https://waarneming.nl/

 

[Annie H]

Thanks Andrew.
I hadn't seen that site, but it seems similar to another site that just provides casual records with counts for just a small area. What I'm looking for is something like the WeBS totals for the whole site. Surely someone does counts at least for the international waterbird census every third January - I've found a summary of results for the whole East Atlantic Flyway in 2017, but not individual countries.
I'e also found a fairly comprehensive management plan for the Lauwersmeer National Park - in Dutch of course, which I can't understand. But I thought it might have a table of bird numbers, but no, it doesn't. There is some data in species accounts, but teasing out the right numbers from something written in Dutch is not going to be easy.

 

[Annie H]

I've now found some slightly more up-to-date info on the Ramsar website, but even that is only up to 2012. So anything more recent would still be of interest. Thanks.

 

[Thijs Fijen]

Sovon.nl is the place to go. https://www.sovon.nl/en/content/vogelsoorten gives you the population sizes (including Ramsar up to 2015), but the language switches back to Dutch again and again.. Hope it isn't a big issue for you.

 

[Annie H]

Thanks Thijs, that is a great help.

I hadn't realised that there is a good-sized breeding population of barnacle geese in the Netherlands, and that the 60,000 or so at the Lauwersmeer was only about 10% of the wintering population. When I visited in early November 1989, I saw them only at Lauwersmeer when they were just beginning to arrive from the north.

I can cope with small amounts of Dutch - thanks to having learnt some German at school and to having some knowledge of the subject I am reading about. Numbers, graphs and tables also make understanding easier. Google translate is useful, but it mangles language so badly that I use it only occasionally for a sentence or two in hope of clarification. While I may wish everything was available in English, I certainly do not expect it. I am just grateful that the information is available in some form - even if it takes me a while to find it.

 

[Thijs Fijen]

This report might interest you as well: https://www.sovon.nl/nl/publicaties/watervogels-nederland-20172018-0
It's in Dutch, but the captions of tables and figures are in English as well, and it gives you detailed information for waterbird counts in 2017-2018.