This video is about barnacle geese, golden plovers and other birds, as seen from the hide near Polder Breebaart nature reserve in Groningen province in the Netherlands.
We went there on 10 June 2014, two days after our arrival in Losdorp.
As we passed a built-up area of Delfzijl on our way, an oystercatcher alongside a wood pigeon on a lawn.
As we arrived at Breebaart: black-tailed godwits and spotted redshanks.
Shelducks. Avocets.
Northern lapwings. Starlings.
Barnacle geese.
Five spoonbills on an islet.
A redshank couple walks along the shoreline with their youngster.
On the bank on the other side, a male wigeon rests between mallards.
A bit later, an adult yellow wagtail and a juvenile.
We walk to the Dollard estuary.
A kestrel gets its head out of a nestbox.
About thirty harbour seals resting on the sandbanks, both adults and young.
Then, something suspicious. A human walking near the bank, where people are forbidden to go as the seals should not be disturbed. The human picks up a young seal from a muddy part of a sandbank. Are we witnessing wildlife crime?
Soon, we find out there was no cause for alarm. The human turns out to be a lady who has been saving baby seals for decades. This young seal had been left behind by its mother. Some parts of the soil are very muddy here, and seal babies may get stuck. The seal goes into a yellow car of the Pieterburen seal rescue centre.
Shelducks fly past.
As we walk back, the kestrel sits on top of its nestbox now.
In Termunterzijl village, a few orange flags, because of the football World Cup in Brazil (which had not started then yet).
Satellite tracking has shown seals like to feed near offshore wind farms and pipelines. The scientists believe that these man-made structures serve as artificial reefs and attractive hunting grounds. Their data showed seals regularly entering the wind farms and, in some cases, perform striking grid-like movement patterns as they forage: here.
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