Gannet, black guillemot and shag

20 October 2013. After the brent goose, porpoises, herring gulls and pipit, we are nearly at the end of the IJmuiden jetty. Purple sandpipers: maybe they came here all the way from Spitsbergen.

A female eider duck swimming.

Then, a young gannet flies past. First, along the north side of the jetty towards the sea; then, along the south side to the coast. Was it born at Bempton Cliffs in England? In Scotland?

On one of the jetty’s rocks sits a shag. This is a rare species in the Netherlands; contrary to its great cormorant relatives, they don’t nest here (though they tried for the first time recently). This rare shag, and other unusual birds, attracts birders and bird photographers to IJmuiden today. See also here.

As we walk back to the coast in the east, we see the young black guillemot in winter plumage better now than when we went to the west. Then, the black guillemot was diving nearly all the time.

Now, it swims. Because it caught a prey, difficult to swallow. People on the pier discuss what the bird caught: a crab? a fish? Maybe it is a spiny fish, a sculpin or something. The spines, as well as the size, quite big for this smallish bird, may explain why it takes the black guillemot so long to swallow this.

Stay tuned, as on 20 October there were birds not only along the pier, but also elsewhere in IJmuiden.

Related articles

• Brent goose, porpoise family, herring gull with ring (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Pipits, turnstones and red knots (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Seabirds face extinction after poor breeding season (scotsman.com)
• Country diary: Burghead, Highlands: Despite the diving gannets, it was the arctic terns that stole the show for me (theguardian.com)
• Scottish seabird numbers continue to decline. (scotsman.com)
• ‘Extinction’ warning over seabirds (bbc.co.uk)
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• Scots birds’ fate rests on a wing and a prayer (scotsman.com)