Seawatching, december 1987- february 1988 (CVZ)

The Hondsbossche Zeewering (Hbz., Noord-Holland) was the only regularly manned seawatching site in all months. Additional data were obtained from Westkapelle (Westk., Zeeland) in December, Ameland in January and Schiermonnikoog in February. Like the last three winters good numbers of divers were observed served. Daily totals in the third wee* of December often exceeded 100 on Westk. and Hbz., all heading south. On 12th December over 500 divers were counted on Hbz. Huge numbers were seen on Ameland in January, with a grand total of 1900 individuals from 5-10th, including a one-hour-maximum of 540 divers. Because of the daily changes in flight directions it is felt that these observations concern local movements of a concentration of divers along the Wadden Sea coast. Further south divers were much less numerous but on 10th January 400 ind. were observed at Hbz. Northbound passage started in the second week of February and from now on over 10/hour heading north were counted regularly. More than 95X of all identified divers were Red-throated.