On January 14, 2025, it turned out that a spoonbill with a transmitter, named Halimione, was in the Drowned Land of Saeftinghe and was no longer moving.

Since the Drowned Land of Saeftinghe is a protected nature reserve and I am therefore not allowed to just go and search there, I contacted people I know who, among other things, carry out water bird counts there.
Moreover, there is a drop of almost six meters there, near Antwerp. So you have to know what you are doing, otherwise it is life-threatening.
The people I contacted immediately threw it into the group of guides to ask if someone could help us.
On Saturday, January 18, there was a guide who could accompany us and the tide was favorable. You have to leave with the ebbing tide and be back before high tide.
The guide suggested that we meet at 10:00 at the visitor center of the Drowned Land of Saeftinghe near Emmadorp.
On the way there I picked up Sven Prins, also a member of the working group, at the toll plaza of the Westerscheldetunnel.

The weather wasn't really great. It was 1 degree Celsius and foggy. That's a shame because otherwise you would see the port area of ​​Antwerp, the nuclear power stations of Doel and the gigantic container ships on the Scheldt.

Our guide led us in the direction of the place where the transmitter was supposed to be.
A pretty tough hike where we had to jump over gullies if we could and otherwise had to clamber in and out of gullies; we also walked through gullies and followed them.

On our way we came across a group of grey buntings that are known to stay there every winter.
The place where the transmitter was supposed to be was beyond the route where the guides normally come, but with the help of the GPS we actually found it quite easily.
There was not much left of the spoonbill and we were unable to determine the cause of death.

On the way back we passed a place where a spoonbill transmitter was located last year. But water still comes there regularly and it is impossible to find a transmitter in all that washing up. The spoonbill may have washed up there too.

In the end we walked 8.5 kilometers and that took us more than 4 hours.
Boots filled of course and changed in the parking lot of the visitors center.
That night I slept well.