2023-07-23 20:00:24
At Ezumakeeg, on the Frisian side of the Lauwersmeer, many birds can often be seen, including rare ones. After the spring, the area burst open from the drought, while the water was previously too deep for wading birds. Staatsbosbeheer had opened a tunnel under the road, so that the adjacent natural meadows were soggy.
Ruffs, wood sanders, black-winged stilts, snipes, plovers, sandpipers, all kinds of ducks, black-tailed godwits and lapwings roamed there. Some took measures in preparation for a hoped-for breeding success, others for a flight to the north.
A man peered through his binoculars resting on a pole. I greeted him and asked if he had seen much. There followed an enumeration of enviable observations, in a tone as if that were his daily fare. There were two rarities that had just flown off into a flock of other birds. He ended his report with: ‘And the black ibis of course’. Black ibis? ‘Yes, aren’t you coming for that then?’ No, but I’d like to see him. “He flew south.”
Resemblance to a large curlew
I made my way south at a walking pace, paying close attention. And sure enough, a little later I saw him walking parallel to the road, through a blank ditch.
I saw my first black ibis when I was twenty-one, in Turkey. It was dead and gone; but its head with the crooked beak was still attached. That beak makes the bird look like a large curlew. It is darker than a curlew, but not black. In the sun you can see that the chest and neck are shiny chestnut brown.
Later I saw black ibises in Romania and outside Europe. This was my first in the Netherlands. Yet they are seen every year. Black ibises often roam. It would be best for them to breed in the Netherlands. They do this just like blue herons in trees and in colonies. A colony may not be required, but two ibises (m/f) are necessary for a breeding case.
Three times a week, biologist Koos Dijksterhuis writes regarding something that grows or blooms. Read his previous Nature Diaries here.
1690193826
#lone #ibis #Fidelity