It's just as well we packed thick sleeping bags, and that the camper is small enough that the cooker gives some welcome heat first thing in the morning. This weather isn't very nice.
Near the bridge across the Ketelmeer we find a roost of some 1500 pochard, with a few coot and mallard for company. When traffic comes along the road, the sleeping duck drift out from the shore, and afterwards drift in again. A group of cormorants view it all from the top of a pylon in the Meer. Shaggy inkcap fungi grow along the embankment.In a field, a buzzard hunches over something that turns out to be another buzzard. Winter disputes between birds are usually over food when a subordinate bird doesn't give up his prize after being threatened, it'll adopt a crouching posture and, if attacked, may throw itself over backwards and present its talons, eventually lying motionless in a submissive display if it cannot escape. Fatalities do occur, but our arrival disturbs these two birds, and both fly off safely - though I'm not sure who got the food in the end.
Geese
Our reason for visiting the Netherlands at this time of year is to see the wild geese coming in from their northern breeding grounds. Six species of geese are regular visitors, often coming from Lapland and Siberia, whereas the same species coming to Britain are more likely to come from Greenland and Iceland. Some 600,000 geese stay for the winter (about twice as many as in Britain), with different species arriving at different times between October and January, then departing between February and May, the exact timing being dependent on the weather. Other birds move on south, some going as far as southern Spain.
Geese
Our reason for visiting the Netherlands at this time of year is to see the wild geese coming in from their northern breeding grounds. Six species of geese are regular visitors, often coming from Lapland and Siberia, whereas the same species coming to Britain are more likely to come from Greenland and Iceland. Some 600,000 geese stay for the winter (about twice as many as in Britain), with different species arriving at different times between October and January, then departing between February and May, the exact timing being dependent on the weather. Other birds move on south, some going as far as southern Spain.
As the weather is relatively mild (I mean, it's not freezing, just cold and damp), we are disappointed, but not surprised, to have found few geese on the Flevoland polders. The other main wintering grounds are the provinces of Friesland in the north and Zeeland in the south of the country. So, we decide to go north, since the geese would arrive there first, and only move south as the weather gets colder.
Noord‑oost polder
Our appreciation of the Netherlands increases as we travelled. It is a small, neat and very tidy country ‑ every square centimetre of land seems to be in use. Houses and other buildings are compact and clean‑looking. Litter is put into litter bins which are provided, often in quantity, in every public place. We've seen only three abandoned cars, and there are no 'old bangers' on the road. Motorists seem careful and steady, keeping a respectful distance behind, and overtaking only when there is plenty of room to do so.
Noord‑oost polder
Our appreciation of the Netherlands increases as we travelled. It is a small, neat and very tidy country ‑ every square centimetre of land seems to be in use. Houses and other buildings are compact and clean‑looking. Litter is put into litter bins which are provided, often in quantity, in every public place. We've seen only three abandoned cars, and there are no 'old bangers' on the road. Motorists seem careful and steady, keeping a respectful distance behind, and overtaking only when there is plenty of room to do so.
Away from the towns it is difficult to escape the flat landscape with its network of dykes and drainage ditches. Now the dutch population has stabilised there is no need for further reclamation for farmland, but the existing network of ditches must still be maintained. Things are generally quiet on the farming front, except that the sugar beet harvest is in full swing. Many small, out‑of‑the‑way car parks have been taken over by huge mounds of roots awaiting collection on their way from the field to the sugar refineries.
Most farm animals have been taken off the fields for the winter, but amongst those still out are some unusual looking sheep. They are brown in colour but with white tails and a white mark down their faces so that it was difficult at a distance to tell one end from t'other. These are Zwartbles sheep which are extremely milky and can suckle twins and triplets with ease. Lambs grow at a tremendous rate and have lean meat. The fleeces are of good quality, with plenty of crimp and lovely shading from brown to black.
There are also small numbers of goats, in particular a short‑legged brown variety that delights in playing king of the castle, in fact, it seems unusual to see them on the ground if there is any object (including another goat) that they can possibly jump onto. Many farms seem to have a few horses, or perhaps just a mare and her last foal, sturdy‑looking black beasts of medium size.
The Noordoost polder has a rather more lived‑in feel than Flevoland; the buildings are older, the trees more mature and the roads were undergoing repair and resurfacing work. Yet it still has the Dutch aura of tidiness ‑ fields cultivated up to the road, well maintained ditches and dykes, and a distinct lack of dereliction, whether of old buildings or abandoned cars and machinery.
Friesland
Further north, we enter the Province of Friesland ‑ a 'real' countryside of undulating landscape with woods and an abundance of lakes and shallow waters offering ideal roosting sites for geese. About three quarters of the area is dairy farmland, which provides them with suitable foraging grounds.
There is an open campsite at the southern end of the Heeger Meer and we book in for the night. A small part of the lakeshore is accessible from the campsite and here we found mallard, wigeon, coot and great-crested grebe.
Among the grebe are a family of stripy young which kept their parent busy catching fish. One youngster is noticeably smaller than the other three, and it is usually first in line when the parent surfaces with food. If it doesn't get fed immediately, it assumes a begging posture ‑ head forward, neck submerged, feet paddling out to the side almost on the water surface. The parent usually responds by regurgitating a small fish, but sometimes it insists on feeding another youngster instead. It seems rather late in the year to see youngsters but some 10% of mid‑European great crested grebes do have a second brood. The eggs are laid at 48 hour intervals and incubation begins with the first egg laid so that in a clutch of six there may be ten days age and size difference between the first and last chick, so this family was not unusual.
Most of the wigeon and a few coot are grazing on a grassy spit a hundred metres or so from us. When a sparrowhawk comes through they all hop into the water, but clamber out to graze again a few minutes after the danger was past. At dusk a huge cloud appears in the distance, turning into about a thousand geese as it comes closer. Suddenly the first ranks break formation and whiffle down: tumbling, side-slipping and twisting, forming a curtain of bodies that disappear behind the reeds. The next line does the same, and the next, until the sky is empty. But we have seen enough to know they are greylags.
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