Like last year, I had the opportunity to spend a week on the island of Griend as a bird watcher. This year in the second week of July. Griend is an uninhabited island located in the Wadden Sea between Terschelling and Harlingen and this island has been managed for more than a hundred years as a natural monument by the association Natuurmonumenten. The current surface area is about 60 hectares. But the island has been much larger in the past and has a very rich history throughout the centuries. Who wants to know more about this should consult some literature that has been published about this island by Jan Veen and more recently by Laura Govers. Griend is especially important as a nesting area for species of terns such as: sandwich tern, common tern and arctic tern.

But just as important is this island as a resting area for the many thousands of waders that stay here for weeks on end each year in spring and fall on and around Griend. They do this during their migration from their wintering grounds in the far south to their breeding grounds in the far north vice versa. These are mainly bird species such as knot, bar-tailed godwit, dunlin and many other wader species. The Wadden Sea is a tidal area and twice a day vast mudflats around Griend fall dry, giving all those thousands of waders the opportunity to forage. Fat reserves are replenished here to continue their journey after a few weeks. And this process has been going on for centuries and it is wonderful to be able to follow this daily during such a week on the island.

Spoonbills have also now discovered Griend as a suitable breeding site. Partly due to an increase in the national breeding population, spoonbills have started breeding on Griend since 2013. Meanwhile, between 60 and 70 pairs breed here and with success as we have seen in recent years. On average, these pairs raise between 1 and 1½ young that are ready to fly. By the Working Group Spoonbill an average of thirty young spoonbills are ringed annually using individually recognizable color-ring combinations. It is now known that after one year, about 40% of these youngs have not survived, but the other 60% often have a chance of reaching between 12 and 15 years of age. After fledging, these birds can then be further controled by using a binocular or telescope. Observers of colour-ringed spoonbills are usually quickly informed about the lifehistory of their observed spoonbill.

In addition to the use of color rings, small transmitters are sometimes attached as a kind of backpack. The information obtained from this transmitter-work is certainly impressive and provides much insight into how spoonbills organize their day and make use of their breeding and feeding areas. And all the collected dates can be used to better protect those areas, at least for the spoonbills, and no doubt other bird species will make use of it as well. Enthusiasts who want to follow that should check out aps like: Animal Tracker but there are also other ways to track tagged birds.

The spoonbills here on Griend nest on the ground as they do on the other Wadden Islands and that is the reason to make it relatively easy to approach the colony. Spoonbills breed in groups and young spoonbills often roam in small creches starting from the age of the third week of life. When the youngs are about five weeks old, such a group of young is approached and with a number of helpers we can collect such a group. Together with a color ring they get also a metal ring from the Arnhem Bird Migration Station. And various biometric measurements are taken per individual such as: wing and tarsus length; weight is determined and a drop of blood is usually taken for further investigation. In addition, in recent years, throat and cloacal samples are taken to determine if animals are or have been infected with avian flu. All this is done to increase knowledge about this species and may also be used to improve their living conditions.

A shelter for bird watchers has been on Griend for many years and our current shelter was built here in 2006. This shelter consists of two floors and on the top floor there is a walkway with balustrade on the outside.

Twice a day we see the spoonbills leave the colony about 2 to 3 hours after high tide to forage for shrimp and small flatfish in the channels around the island. They often do this in groups partly because I think it is more effective to be able to catch prey. When they have gathered enough food, they fly back to the colony to feed their youngs and this does not happen too gently. Especially when the youngs are almost as big as their parents, they are very emphatic begging for food and you can just see that those parents have great difficulty in keeping their youngs happy. Even when the youngs are ready to fledge they are still fed for at least another 4 weeks.

And we were able to follow all this closely during a week’s visit to the island. It was again a real pleasure.!