Vogels op het strand bij Noordwijk

In this article, the results of 200 counts of the birds on the beach near Noordwijk aan Zee (mainland coast, The Netherlands) are presented (2001- 2011). Of these, 100 counts were prior to a major restructuring of the beach (strengthening of the coastline by adding a large amount of sand) that occurred in October 2007, the other 100 counts were since these operations (Table 1). Some 407,948 birds were recorded, representing 63 species (Table 2) and numbers were particularly large in winter (often >10,000 individuals). Numbers of birds have declined slightly since October 2007 (c. 17%). The beach near Noordwijk is an important tourist area, and nesting birds are absent. The observed decline is an effect of the morphological changes of the beach and different winter weather prior to and since 2007.