8th November 1998 - the Brouwersdam

The sun is shining again and visibility is normal, but a cold easterly wind is not good for sea-watching on a west facing coast! Neverthe­less we go back to the Brouwersdam to see it really looks like.

Things are much the same as yesterday on the North Sea except for a red-throated diver which circles overhead and inspects the camper while we are having breakfast, then disappears towards the Grevelingenmeer. There are also many more great-crested grebe further out.A different group of eider roost near the sluice gate; close scrutiny reveals a few adult females amongst them. These have plain brown head and neck, white tips to greater coverts and, at close range, a pale eye‑ring, but no supercilium. Just to complicate matters of identification, it has recently been found that a few female eider show male plumage character­istics. The reason is thought to be that eider have been protected for so long in the Netherlands that some females may be suffering from old age. Their repro­ductive organs are degenerating and no longer providing sufficient female hormones to stimulate the production of enough feather pigment. Thus old females can look like young males!

Something disturbs the turnstone; and the eider, too, become alert as a sparrowhawk flies low round the sluice gates. It goes through the waders but makes no attempt to strike, then continues across the water before dis­appear­ing over distant dunes, scattering small birds in its path.

As the tide goes out, a couple of herring gulls are intent on poking about in the crevices between rocks on the tideline looking for lunch. A first winter herring gull finds himself a clump of mussels which he carries up about four or five metres and drops into a pool of water. He succeeds in cracking open one mussel and repeats the process twice, on more suitable surfaces, to get at the rest. Several other immature herring gulls are also feeding this way. Oyster­catchers are also feeding on mussels, using the stabbing technique to get at the flesh.

After a couple of hours we decide to try the other side of the dam, detouring first to a petrol station where a ring‑necked parakeet noisily announces its arrival in a nearby tree. We also disturb a covey of grey partridge on an area of short turf by the road.