In December 2024 there was another visit to the Banc d’Arguin in Mauritania. Mohamed Camara, Bob Loos, Theunis Piersma and Petra de Goeij visited the islands of Arel and Nair and counted the spoonbills and read color rings.

As part of the project Waakvogels, 27 juvenile and 7 adult spoonbills in have been equipped with a GPS-tracker during the past breeding season in different Wadden Sea colonies. In addition, in collaboration with Lowland Ecology Network, two adult spoonbills were GPS-tagged in the colony at the Bataviahaven near Lelystad.

Every year, around 240 spoonbills breed on Vlieland, spread across several colonies. This spring was exciting for the spoonbills. When the first spoonbills arrived, it was so incredibly wet that part of the former breeding colonies were still under water.

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.

Due to circumstances, the domain name werkgroeplepelaar.nl has expired. It was our plan to reclaim that name, but another party beat us to it. They are using AI to create a site with some of our original content and some of our other messages.

In 2023, the Spoonbill Working Group ringed 657 spoonbills and read 14590 spoonbills. Here you can read our annual report 2023.

In 1840, the ambitious and then 26-year-old Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax developed a wind instrument that should incorporate all the good qualities of classical musical instruments. That first “saxophone” was a very large one, a bass saxophone with a very deep sound.

June 7 was one of the days that we went ringing the delta spoonbills this year. At two different locations even. Left Middelburg early, first picked up two people in Goes and then someone at the carpool place near Yerseke.

In addition to scientific research, the working group also tries to protect the spoonbills and little egrets themselves as much as possible, as well as their habitat. One of the causes of death in spoonbills is caused by collisions with power lines, especially the top two wires, which are the thinnest and therefore least visible.

It happens quite often that we see older spoonbills in the same place as the years before, before or during or after the breeding season. Keimpe Bleeker from Friesland saw two such old acquaintances together for the first time in northern Friesland on April 10.