Fochteloër Veen

The Fochteloerveen is a special type of peatbog, called "hoogveen" in Dutch or raised bog in English. It's the final stage of a vegetation succession. Succesion starts with a pond or lake, waterplants die and the pond gets filled by layers of dead leaf material. Under water oxygen levels are very low and therefore the plantdebri hardly decays. Slowly the pond gets filled completely by non-decaying dead plant material. When the pond is filled, slowly a forest can devellop. But even the forest will not be the final stage. Rainwater is the only source of water, which is low on nutrients and it has a relative low PH (it's a bit acid). Nutrients will be washed away and acidity will increase. A lot of plants and trees can't cope with this and die. In the end, you get a very special vegetation of all kinds of rare plants and peat moss Sphagnum. Peat moss can grow continuously. It dies at the bottom and grows at the top. It forms a kind of lens and the area gets a bit uplifted. That's why it's called raised bog.

In the past, large area's of the east part of the Netherlands were covered with this "hoogveen" habitat type. But in the past centuries most area's were destroyed for turf collecting. Now only a few relatively small area's remain, of which the Fochteloërveen is one. There is hardly any turfcollecting left and the area could be retained as an important nature conservation area. You can find here very rare animals and plants. Nowadays waterlevels are being kept high artificially and some other restoration is taking place. The Fochteloerveen restoration is a successtory. Amphibian and reptile numbers are high, numbers of dragonflies are impressive, rare plants are doing well and rare bird species returned or discovered the area. The best succes so far, was the return of breeding Common Cranes Grus grus. (The picture of the crane) isn't from today. The Fochteloereveen becomes one of the most important area's for species that are declining in the rest of the Netherlands.

Our return to this beautiful area wasn't a successtory, though. We wanted to have another look at the group of Red-footed falcons, but they were gone. The last birds left the day before... We couldn't find the reported Red-backed Shrikes, and a possible sighting of a Short-toed eagle was far from satisfying. Things got even worse when friends (Ben and "lucky"Luuk) discovered a red-throated pipit in a different part of the Netherlands. When we started the day there was some sort of funny competition between our two cars, who would find the best birds and the most species and it seemed as if we were the losing today. But although we "lost", we did see some good stuff like European Honey Buzzard, loads of Hobbies, two Red-necked Grebes (in Diependal) and two displaying Common Snipes. To see displaying Common Snipes is a rare thing nowadays and we were very happy with the sighting.

Because there were not as many rare birds as we had hoped for, we had to do with other stuff, like these two species of carnivorous plants:





<-- Round-leaved Sundew Drosera rotundifolia







<-- Oblong-leaved Sundew Drosera intermedia
(the leaves are covered with willow seeds)




Even though things were not really succesfull today, the Fochteloerveen remains a beautiful place. So I can only say:
I'll be back!!!

Red-footed falcons (Falco vespertinus)

There's an invasion going on of Red-footed Falcons Falco vespertinus in the Netherlands. It started three weeks ago when the first rumours of Red-footed Falcons migrating north came from Spain and France. A few days later, the first falcons were reported on migration points in the Netherlands. Numbers and sightings increased and then the first reports of present falcons came in. Every year in spring we have a few sightings of Red-footed falcons, but normally they remain rare. This year however, the winds were good (we had a long period of eastern winds) and the falcons were probably driven by the winds to Western Europe. They were seen on numerous locations and it was the first time since the last invasion of 1992 that large groups were present.

Red-footed Falcons normally live in Eastern Europe and Asia. They breed there in small colonies, mostly within colonies of a different bird, the Rook Corvus frugilegus. Of which they use old deserted nests. In winter they migrate to Africa. In spring, when they return, they can get lost, that's when they show up in Western Europe. On rare occasions, this can result in a breeding record. There are some records of breeding Red-footed falcons from Germany, Sweden and Finland. In the Netherlands it however never occured, but who knows what this invasion will bring! They are mainly insect eaters and need areas with many large insects, like dragonflies.

Last Saturday me and some friends went to an area called the "Fochteloër Veen". There supposed to be a group of at least 30 Red-footed Falcons present according to the nature database Waarneming.nl. When we saw the pictures, we decided we should go there. The problem was, we couldn't. First opportunity was this weekend, so we were crossing our fingers and hoped the birds would stay. And they did! What marvellous birds! I always hoped to see them and never succeeded untill this year. The first ones I ever saw, was at the migration counting point at Breskens this year, but views were bad, nothing compared to what we saw at the Fochteloër Veen area. WOW!!! When we arrived at the spot in the morning, the birds were sitting in the top of dead Birch (Betula) trees. We counted at least 31 but it might also have been 34. I won't bore you with the details about this ambiguity concerning the count, what's important is that there were so many birds present!


It was possible to see all the plumage variations you can find in spring. First of all, in this species the sexes are not alike (they show sexual colour dimorphism) and there were males and females present. Then there were adults and 2nd calender year birds, so different age classes. But there were also large differences within the 2nd calender year group, which was really nice to see.

We were enjoying the falcons when my friends got a pageralert, through the Dutch Bird Alert system. A Terek Sandpiper Xenus cinereus was dicovered at the Lauwersmeer area. For three of us a Terek was a lifer and a bird which was high on our whishlist and thus we decided to go. It didn't work out; we didn't see the bird. The Lauwersmeer is however one of the best birding places in the Netherlands and although we didn't see the Terek we had a good time over there. Apart from the pleasant company the birds were also pleasant. Like numerous shorebirds at close distance (male ruffs in breeding plumage, temminck stints at 3m., etc etc.), 2 nice Whiskered Terns Chlidonias hybrida, 6 Black Tern Chlidonias niger, one Osprey, one Caspian tern Hydroprogne caspia and loads of other birds. On the way back we saw in Groningen two White-winged Tern Chlidonias leucopterus (which completed the three marshterns you can see in Europe) and then we went back to the Fochteloër Veen to have a last look at the Red-footed falcons.

The falcons were even better than in the morning, catching insects (mainly dragonflies). Sometimes I saw them jumping into small trees or on the ground. It was colder than the days before and most dragonflies were inactive, so they had to grab them from the trees and bushes. They were flying right in front of us and weren't afraid at all, I even saw them hover! Splendid!!