black woodpecker

[barn owl]

yesterday a black woodpecker visited the garden, i have never seen one before though my wife says its around here fairly regular. so another first for me, and mr heron was here eyeing up my pond, cheecky monkey took them all 2 years back but now i have roped it off so he gave up.:)

[Shamal]

What an amazing bird to have in your garden, well done. I hear they are quie elusive in their natural habitat.

There have been many 'reports' of Black Woodpecker' in the U.K. but none have ever been officially recognised as genuine. It seems they are not fond of travel over water, maybe they could learn to use the channel tunnel instead :D

[barn owl]

haha shamal,
the tunnel indeed, well i have been here 3 years and my wife and her son say they see it a few times a year, i actually heard it and saw it flying i think only 2 times. its flight reminds me of a jay, same wings i guess. up and down in flight but, then there it was and to be most honest it was not in my garden but just outside, about 15 yards outside on a tree a dead tree which i think will fall soon, its pitted with holes from the past and from what i saw the bird was about the size of a rook or jackdaw but it was so real and i saw the red also. a first for me, i had to work on the pond today also as the heron is hell bent on getting my fish again, its nice to see him/ her here but i dont want to lose my fishies lol. all the nest boxes are now vacated except for the flycatcher and its going quiet here, the red squirrel built their drey and dont come back much we see them about once a day about here, ? strange they work so hard and then abandon it. the weather is bad here now its more like winter again,
gotta love them birds and mr woodpecker wasa sight to see but only for about one minute then hes gone again.
regards owl.

[yoke]

hi Barn Owl, I remember those large Black Woodpeckers from 30+ years ago when growing up in Utrechtse Heuvelrug.
Here in Ireland I've not seen any where we live; much too open country for those kind of birds, and besides, Ireland has no Woodpeckers at all.

a lot of -mostly land- animals "missed the boat" so to speak when Ireland got divided from the UK; we've got no snakes, moles for example and also no either stoats or weasels. (its one or the other, and my memory fails me here)
A lot of birds, like a ;ot of Birds of Prey, did not make it either. and although Sparrowhawks have been recorded here, I've none here.

It is a pity of the woodpeckers though; I really like them.

[barn owl]

Hi Yoke,
Well i must admit to only seeing it once in nearly 4 yrs ive been here, but im pretty sure i seen it 2 or 3 times flying as the sound it makes is so diff from other birds. still it was a first for me, and green woodys are not common here but the lesser and greater spotted are lots. pretty birds too.
utrecht is not far from me i think about an hr, ive past it but not been there. so are you dutch or irish ? , as ive said im a welshman, moved here for a lady love.
i am really surprised you say you have no snakes i thought grass snakes and adders would be there.
moles are a pain here we see them out in the open as you may know already, and they tend to burrow into the chicken run. and my lawn.
birds of prey i rarely see and then mostly kestrels and buzzard. beautiful blonde buzzards,
saturday i was biking along the canal and followed a cormorant diving for fish, he/she did 3 dives then got fed up of me and flew off.
and now you say you lived here you will know about the storks and deer and those huge grasshoppers ?
things ive not seen for yrs and yrs are newts and lizards,
this morning on way to work i spotted 3 large bats just before light broke and they deffinately were not pipastrels so not knowing bats too well im at a loss as the type. about the size of a blackbird i reckon, but the wing beats give them away. only saw about 6 storks today and a couple of herons plus the cormorant (pied) sat in same place as last time. but a nice days viewing.
ok take care and good spotting.
regards owl.

[yoke]

Ah, aWelsh farmer! now things start to make sense. You knew the English birdnames a little too well in English.
I am Dutch. Born in Eindhoven. But raised around the Utrechtse Heuvelrug and a real girl of the woods. My friends took us back to those this summer for my 50th birthday, which apart from giving us this trip, would have been the perfect present in its own.
They almost surpassed that again by taking us the Great Cormorants in the polder’s lakes; and I'm now deeply in love with these birds. :)

Having been out with and in the garden of, Dutch birdwatchers, I know how difficult it is to call a Dutch bird by its proper name in Dutch, as you cannot go and translate from English. My OH gave me a few Dutch fieldguides to start practising the Dutch names for when we move back to Holland. (its ironic that these “Dutch books are translations again from the UK Collins Birdguides), and I’m already busy scribbling the English names back in to make the learning process easier.

I am very envious of you land that is your garden, yet my own gardenbirds keep me entertained all day long and especially the House Sparrows’ antics make you smile too;) !

[barn owl]

Hi Yoke,
im not at all surprised you want to move back here, Holland is so clean compared to some places. and the wildlife is different to what im used to. im in zuidwolde, near to hoogeveen and my dutch is not good lol but i am trying and the first words ike leren were ike hou van je, knuffle and strangely vogel. was the first word i learnt from watching tv.

i have been here nearly 4 years now and should learn faster except i dont see anyone to talk to, well thats my excuse for being lazy.
i met my vrouw in internet chat room and she came to the uk and kidnapped me to holland lol, well we got married in april and it has worked out good.

oddly enough i got into bird life through collins as a kinder. see ike leren nederlands noo lol.im in my 50s also. i cannot spell it but you would say feer and sestach.

polder lakes is where i pass through every day for work so you can imagine what i see daily at 7am each morning. i gave up counting storks today there are always more each day.

my garden is 40 metres x 24 metres and i have 31 trees approx hight is about 10 to 15 metres, pine trees and silver birch mostly. we live near to the canal which they call de stuw. lots of heron here and cormorant. we have 4 big fields which we use for horses and hay cutting now. but the main job is a menager ? a horse riding school. we have had that about 3 months and are building it up, we have 50 horses and pony there and its starting to do good. my wife is a riding teacher horse trainer and a judge at competitions. and we hope to make it our main job. i miss wales , as you know there are no mountains or rivers here. but i miss the food most lol. so my sister sends food parcels of what i cannot get here and i send clompens back as a present.

i was sure you would have slang in ireland ? even just the adder, and my favourite saying here is (why is everything) big enough AND trying to eat me lol.
anyway its nice to know you and i think we cannot use this forum for our chit chat so if ever you want you can e mail me on ralph_dyer @planet.nl

anytime your home sick i have a caravan in my garden, sleeps 4 to 6. gratis for you. its booked xmas sorry, we rent it out .
talk again soon,
best regards owl .(ralph)

[yoke]

I'm still very envious of your birdlife, owl, and more so the Cormorants-those eelscooping beaks are something special. Pied Cormorants? Which are those? Did not spot any of those, I think- so I'm curious!

I've no dig. camera, but could you show me a picture, perhaps?

caravan is out of the question for me- my wheels(chair) simply won't fit
Unfortunately.
and I have to recover still from this last trip- mostly due to travel in wheelie bus on the 100k on an Irish road home. I've got chronic pain for years already which means no local trips either.

no snakes, indeed. It is said that St. Patrick banned all snakes from this island, but this sounds like religious babble to me.
Here is more logical reasons:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mirishsnakes.html

[barn owl]

Hi Yoke,
well i havent a pic of the pied but you can type it in internet search and you will see one. actually i never knew they existed, when i saw one i thought what is that ? then i thought shag but thats black all over too. so i typed in cormorant and there was a pic of one, another first for me today was seeing about 50 cormorants near polder lake flying in a group, has anyone EVER heard of that ? i thought it must be geese or ducks but truly they were cormorants. ive never seen more than 2 together in my life. the white egrets we saw again today and my wife reckons they have curved beaks, is that then an ibis and if so are they visitors or what ? we were talking about the storks and i said i counted 44 one day, my wife said they were nearly all gone here 5 years ago but they started to breed them around stophorst and 5 years back they had 65 pairs, so 130 birds about. i know they put up a lot of nest platforms for them, so they try hard to keep them going. also spotted a kestrel today.
regards owl.

[yoke]

The Pied Cormorants look more like Gannets, really, but still a great bird.

We saw flocks of about 10 in de Plassen, however I will ask my friends, as they often visit there where they took us and have probably seen large flocks too?

what do you farm, and do you ever get any work done?