Seawatching, November 1991 – January 1992

Regular observations were carried out in Noord-Holland at Honsbossche Zeewering (Hbz) and Egmond aan Zee (Egm) and at Ameland (Am). Just a few hours were received from Callantsoog, West-Kapelle (WK), Scheveningen (Sch), Terschelling (Tersch) and the Frisian mainland coast. Again, the winter was quite mild. Just on a few days temperatures were below zero. The only species of which coldrushes were observed was the Great crested Grebe. On 6 Dec, 1340 birds flew by at Schev and 2000 were seen at Hbz on the 20th. Southward passage was recorded late Jan. This winter, it seemed that no large concentrations of divers were present off the Wadden Isles. However, at Hbz 220 divers were seen flying south on 10 Jan and three days later 440 divers were seen flying north at the same location. In Nov and Dec, 4 Great Northern Divers were seen in Noord-Holland. Large southbound movements of Eiders along coast of Noord-Holland were observed regularly during the period. Some of the biggest daily totals include 3500 ind. on the 20th of Nov, 6000 on the 10th and 3000 on the 26th of Jan. Apparently, not all the Eiders left the Wadden Sea as could be witnessed on the 21th of January when at Tersch a flock of ”more than a 100,000” Eiders was estimated. Also present near the Wadden Isles were scoters. On the 2nd to 4th of November more than 20,000 westward flying Common Scoters and more than 1000 Velvet Scoters were counted at Tersch.