Lapland Bunting err.. Snow Bunting and Pallas's Leaf Warbler

It was a long time since I really went birdwatching. Last weekend the weather seemed pretty good for migration of birds, with an eastern component in the wind and a good period (end March). Already since 2006 I often count migration at migration site Ketelbrug-Kamperhoek (see http://trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=47 for the counting results) together with Toy Janssen, Alwin Borhem, Christian Brinkman and Teun van Kessel. Toy and Alwin were already counting from the beginning of March. The weekend of 24 and 25 March I finally went along.
Saturday started cold, but the birds weren't really bothered. This period is always exciting because of the returning summer birds. We were hoping on some swallows, martins, Yellow Wagtails, Tree Pipits and Red Kites. Sand Martins (Riparia riparia) were present and some of them made the crossing to the other side of the Ketelmeer. A surprise were two Lapland Longspurs (Calcarius lapponicus) which were discovered when calling and flew over with a Reed Warbler. Not that common in spring! Later, I discovered another one flying over accros the bridge. A fourth individual was only calling and I was able to make a recording of the call. We never found the bird, but it didn't feel quite right for Longspur, it was a little bit to low.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours analysing the sound and comparing it to other recordings of Longspurs and other buntings. As Longspurs sound like Snow Bunting (Plectophenax nivalis), I spent most time in analysing the differences between these species, especially the 'djuu' type of calls (so not the 'didididi' calls of both) and the 'chee-wlup' call of Longspur. The 'chee-wlup' call of Longspur is always broken and our sound was not. So, I dived into the differences between the 'djuu' call of both Snow Bunting as Lapland Longspur. Here a sonogram to make it more clear. The first call is of Snow Bunting (Niels Krabbé), the second of Longspur (own recording), the third of a more hoarse Snow Bunting (Dougie Preston) and the last one was our bird (note the echo!):

Snow Buntings have longer calls and end deeper than Longspurs, that's basically it. It is well audible in the field! Snow Buntings produce a bit sad 'pyuuu' as Longspurs produce a short 'pju' wistle. The call which I recorded was somewhat different from the typical call. The normal 'bow' had a nod or an offset halfway the call, making it more hoarse. The length and the depth fits better for Snow Bunting and it really looks (and sounds) like the more hoarse call of Dougie Preston.

So, this recording was the 4th spring Snow Bunting for this migration point!

A highlight of the count was a male Ring Ouzel (Turdus torquatus torquatus), which was the first in the Netherlands this year and beated my old record with 4 days. With almost 6000 species divided among 60 species, we did a good job. For the full results, see here.

Sunday we also brought a visit to Ketelbrug. The first 3,5 hours we stood in dense fog and couldn't see that much. Another Lapland Longspur flew over and showed well. The fog dissapeared and a 3cy White-tailed Eagle headed south over the Ketelmeer, great birds, great views!
Yesterday afternoon a Pallas's Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus proregulus) was discovered near Hilversum and was singing! A Pallas's is always cool to see, and a singing individual is even better! We don't have that many spring sightings. We decided to leave at 13:00 and have a look at the Pallas's. We found it pretty quick and it started calling and singing. I made awfully good recordings and I was extremely happy with them. We spend over an hour trying to make pictures and enjoying the bird. At home I was eager to publish the recordings, as they must have been the best in the collection of waarneming.nl so far. Unfortunately, in mysterious ways, my recordings dissapeared except for one. I was really lucky that it was a good recording, but it only contained one song phrase.. Here the result:


By now, other recordists also made extreme good recordings, so now I am not the only one! Good job guys! I can really enjoy them!