Birds of Dutch Rottum island

This Dutch video is about volunteers cleaning up Rottum island.

Rottum (or Rottumeroog) is a small island in the Dutch Wadden sea.

Usually, people don’t live there.

In summer however, there are two wardens to prevent humans from disturbing the nesting birds.

According to the Rottum wardens’ blog, this year 200 eider duck couples are nesting on Rottum; and another 50 on Zuiderduin, a still smaller island close to Rottum.

On both islands, spoonbills nest as well. They nest close to great cormorants.

There are a few little egrets as well. Maybe they will nest here again, like last year.

Between the Zuiderduin spoonbills and cormorant nests, the wardens found three nests of great black-backed gulls, rare birds in the Netherlands. Their feeding behaviour is a bit like vultures in warmer countries: they eat cormorant nestlings which have died, and porpoise carcasses on the beach.

The wardens see migratory birds, like red-necked phalaropes, as well.

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