I spent the summer of 1967 in Europe – a track meet in England, 2 months working for a newspaper in Glasgow, Scotland, and a week or two “on the continent” – Paris, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Amsterdam. Those were days before any interest in birds and no camera. Lots of good memories – some of which may actually have happened – but despite I am sure having seen many birds in Scotland – not a single one is on my current World Life List as I had no interest back then. And although there have been a few return visits to Europe in the intervening almost 50 years including a return to England and Scotland, a trip to Spain and single visits to Italy, Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic all at times when birding mattered to me, there was little to no birding on those trips and my Continental Europe life list was a barely pathetic 87 species. It mostly reflected 55 species seen on a single day in Hungary where I hired a guide and then another 32 species incidentally on a Walk About Italy Tour in October 2023.
In September this year (2025), Cindy and I visited Amsterdam for a week before then visiting family in Massachusetts. I arranged for a single day of birding with a local guide, Wouter Rohde, but otherwise this was going to be a vacation to experience the city life of Amsterdam, visit museums, eat good food – and walk many miles. Brief Ebird research indicated that there were some opportunities for new life birds and/or new life photos. I decided to not take my good camera with its big heavy lens and instead only took an old Canon SX70 zoom point and shoot which I had used when picture taking was not all that important to me. That experience quickly reminded me why I abandoned that camera years ago and improved my photographic resources. Still I was able to see some nice birds, get some photos and add some “ticks” to life and life photo lists. This blog covers only the birding from the trip.
Netherlands Birding
My Ebird research indicated that there were possibly 35 species seen in “North Holland” during the approximate time I would be visiting that would be world lifers for me. But “approximate time” is key as some were much more likely to be seen either a couple of weeks earlier or later as they were migrating through or to the area. Also to see some would require going to more remote areas, so a much more realistic target number was probably closer to a dozen lifers and especially since I was not taking the better camera, perhaps the same total new life photos. As it turned out I saw a total of 67 species in the Netherlands and as we missed a few of the more likely targets, I ended up with 10 new lifers and 10 new life photos.
The first species added to my list was a recent split with the American Herring Gull, an European Herring Gull which I found swimming in the Singel Canal in front of our hotel. I am terrible at gull identification and maybe there is a notable distinction between the two species, but not discernible by me. I was just happy that the gull was easily identified compared to other local gulls due to its size and that very evident pale eye.
I saw a number of birds in our walks around the city including a couple of hours that I spent in Vondelpark on my own. In addition to the numerous Rock Pigeons and many more European Herring Gulls, there were numerous Eurasian Jackdaws, Carrion Crows, Eurasian Coots (common in the canals), Eurasian Moorhens (seen in the park), European Starlings and Black Headed Gulls. Another fairly common species, a surprise to me, was Rose Ringed Parakeet often heard first and then seen flying quickly overhead. I had seen it 14 years earlier in India.
Vondelpark is one of a number of large parks in Amsterdam. It was less than a mile from our hotel and with wonderful weather, I went there for a couple of hours while Cindy caught up on some lost sleep from the long flight from Seattle. It is a beautiful and busy park with hundreds of walkers, joggers, bike riders (like everywhere else in Amsterdam) and on this day, only a single birdwatcher – me. I had hoped to see other birders there who would lead me to special spots and targeted species but it was not to be. I only had 14 species there, most seen elsewhere earlier or later but I was able to find a lifer Eurasian Wren in thick brush after first hearing it. The only other lifer was a life photo of a Eurasian Jay – perfect focus – but only of small part of its body as it remained buried in leaves. I had missed a photo of this species in Italy and would again later in the Netherlands as it is much shyer than expected. At least I captured some wing detail confirming the ID.
Other species at the Park included Eurasian Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Eurasian Moorhen, Common Wood Pigeon and Gray Heron – all of which I had seen in Italy. I heard Eurasian Nuthatch and European Robin but never saw them. I used the Sound ID part of the Merlin App hoping to be led to small forest birds. It heard Goldcrest, which could have been a life photo, but I never found it. A big disappointment was that it did not hear any other forest species.
Amsterdam of course is famous for its many canals. Our hotel, Hotel Estherea was located on the Singel Canal and as indicated above, gave me my first lifer, the European Herring Gull. High on our list of activities during the visit was a canal cruise. These are very popular tourist activities and there are dozens of operators offering cruises of varying lengths and added attractions like beer, wine, cheese and other goodies. Cindy found what we felt was the perfect option for us – a small open boat cruise lasting 90 minutes. Our “captain” was a very interesting and entertaining young man who had lived in New York City and Berlin among other places and was now enjoying Amsterdam and sharing his enthusiasm and knowledge as we motored through several canals. Possibly more on that later but for this “birding section” I include two species seen on the cruise – a Great Cormorant and a Mute Swan. I had seen both and photographed both in the United States, but the Mute Swans in the U.S. are not native, so this Amsterdam version turned out to be a lifer at least under the Ebird rules.
When I knew that Cindy and I would be visiting Amsterdam, I tried to find a local guide to take me or us out birding. Some of the leads I had took me to people or companies that were no longer in business and others took me to people or companies who were not interested in a single day of guiding. Finally I found birdingnetherlands.com a local company that thought one of its guides might be available. After some spotty communication, I arranged a full day of guided birding with Wouther Rohde who would pick Cindy and me up at our hotel and visit a few good spots within an hour or so from the hotel. It worked out well and both Cindy and I enjoyed the day with Wouter. As is always the case, sure it would have been nice to find more species, but it simply was not possible to visit enough diverse areas to add much to our list for the day. We had 63 species including 7 lifers with photos of 6 of them. We also saw two of the lifers I had seen previously and had photos of many other species.
The first place we visited was a coastal area where in addition to some other species, Wouter hoped we would see a Rock Pipit. It may have been a bit early for that pipit but we immediately found a lifer Meadow Pipit, followed quickly by mu lifer Eurasian Oystercatcher. The pipit was one of those “little brown jobs” that was not of interest to Cindy, but she was happy to see the many Eurasian Oystercatchers as the Black Oystercatcher we saw at Semiahmoo early on in our relationship was her “spark bird”.
Although the first location was by the water, we did not have views of the ocean itself and Wouter had indicated that it was not likely that we would see several species on my targets list: European Shag, Common Scoter and Velvet Scoter – just too far to chase. So we settled for some other shorebirds and some smaller “land” birds including Northern Wheatear, a lifer Dunnock and a White Wagtail. A comment about my photos. Although all photos were seen well and clearly “in my camera”, it turned out that the SD card had some problems and I could not download them onto my computer for processing. I had to use a special recovery program to try to be able to work with the photos – it worked for many of the photos but almost half could not be recovered so some of my photos are back of the camera photos – much lower quality – such as this Dunnock photo.
Wouter kept track of the birds we saw and entered them on Ebird, but I learned later that he had consolidated all of the lists into one, so looking back I am not able to identify each place that we visited and the birds seen. Thus I am forced to just combine all of the sightings and photos without a specific area. There were mixed habitats including some forest areas and some shoreline areas along a dyke and a couple of freshwater ponds/lakes. Here are the best birds and photos from the rest of the day.
Although I got pictures of all of them, they unfortunately did not make it through recovery: Ruff (many), Pied Avocet (many), Common Ringed Plover, Northern Lapwing (many), Common Snipe, and Common Sandpiper. There was one lifer heard – clearly and at least three times – a Water Rail which is very similar to our Virginia Rail. And three species heard only and never seen but could have been life photos were Cetti’s Warbler (heard often) and both Common Chaffinch and Common Chiffchaff.
Although I “only” added ten lifers and ten life photos, those additions move me closer to my current “goals” for each and possibly within reach with an upcoming trip leaving next week for Brazil and then another trip to Costa Rica with Cindy and guide Greg Homel in December. The life list is now at 3845 and my goal is 4000. My Brazil lifer target list from this same trip last year is 198 so if I get 90% of the targets (178 species), I will get there. I usually expect to see 90 to 95 percent of my targets from an actual triplist of past tours. Getting to my life photo target list of 3000 will be much harder. After the Netherlands trip that photo list is now 2592 so I need another 408. In addition to the lifer targets in Brazil, there are another 37 potential life photos. Each new lifer is also a potential life photo so together there are 236 potential photos in Brazil but if I see 90% of them and get photos of 65% of them, that is only 138 or so which would only get me to 2730. But it is possible to add another 150 life photos in Costa Rica which would get me to 2880 and I have an ace in the hole, as I am going to species rich Thailand in January. There is a reasonable expectation to add 240+ lifers on that trip with the potential for another 80+ life photos of non-lifer species. Altogether then, that could get me another 200+ life photos – and should clearly get me at least 150 which then gets me over 3000. Of course it is much easier to add species speculating or even calculating for a blog and the experience in the field could be very different. If so – find another trip. Don’t have one planned yet but I am sure there will be more in 2026..
blairbirding 