Influx van Kleine Alken Alle alle in Nederland in winter 1990/91

A description is given of the influx of Little Auks along the Dutch coast in the winter 1990/91. Three periods of peak numbers occurred: 3-4 Nov, 10-13 Dec and 27 Dec-6 Jan (tables 1, 2, figure 1), coinciding with peak numbers in Germany, Belgium and Britain. At least 4000 individuals were seen, most of them in Dec. Up until Dec, the birds seemed to be in reasonable condition, with hardly any corpses recorded during beached bird surveys. After the second peak in Jan 1991, however, weakened and dead birds appeared on the beaches and some inland records occurred. After the recent increase in wintering Little Auks in the northern North Sea from the 1980s onwards (which also resulted in higher annual numbers in The Netherlands), possibly following increases in stocks of small Gobiid and Clupeid fish, it may be that food resources in the northern North Sea had become unexploitable in the winter 1990/91, forcing the birds further south. From Jan 1991 onwards, physical conditions apparently got worse and small numbers died.