On Thursday 27 June 2019 at 7:40 hours, Libbe Zijlstra and Henriėtte Kuipers were driving from Workum to Leeuwarden, when Libbe Zijsltra saw a strange lapwing Vanellus spec along the road which he never had seen. They were not able to stop and at the first round-about, they turned around and saw the bird again, again still not able to stop the car. A second attempt gave better views, but Libbe was not able to take a picture with his smartphone. The bird reminded him of a Wattled Lapwing - Vanellus senegallus. He warned his birding pal Jos Hooijmeijer to check the bird. Jos found the bird instantly and took some pictures and sent these to Libbe. At 10:15 hours Libbe tried to put the record with pictures on the site waarneming.nl, but he could not select the appropriate name. At 10:30 he sent pictures to Rommert Cazemier of www.lauwersmeer.com. Rommert passed the news to more birders and finally it was put on the Dutch Bird Alerts.
The bird was seen till dark and also on the next day. On 28 June at 20:45 it was seen flying away high in westerly direction. I was able to leave work and to see the bird at c 14:30 hours on 27 June.
It was accepted as the first record for the Netherlands and the second or third record for the Western Palearctic. The first record was on 11 May 2018 in the Kizilirmak Delta in Northern Turkey and the second record was of a bird seen on 2-4 May 2019 at Mose, Arendal, Norway and subsequently between 13 and 19 May 2019 at Strandvik, Hultsberg, Sweden. At this time of writing it seems that the Dutch bird and the Scandinavian bird are not the same individual.
Go to the main-index, the 2019-index or the next new species the Western Sandpiper?