On Wednesday 31 July 2024 Erik Speksnijder was looking for some rare plants in the Oranjeboschpolder near Vrouwenpolder Zld. His attention was drawn by some harsh notes of a bird flying past him. At 9:30 he phoned some colleagues and exchanged information with Jaco Walhout and Marcel Klootwijk. His description was very alamrming and both decided to take a look. Marcel arrived first at the scene and identified the bird being a certain Red-wattled Lapwing Vanellus indicus! For a moment they thought it was not a good idea to share the sighting nation wide, but then it moved to another pond and there the bird was visible from a public road, so they decided to make it publicly known via the Dutch Bird Alerts at 11:09 hours. The bird stayed till dark and was seen on the first day by hundreds of birders. The bird stayed there till 2 August, when it flew off at 12:50 hours, not to be seen again. Two days later, the same bird was found on Ameland Fr, but the following day it was gone again.
Later it became known a Red-wattled Lapwing was seen on Vlieland on 27 July 2024 by Harm Knol and his wife, most probably the same bird.
If accepted, it will be the second record for the Netherlands. The first record was on 19 June 2019 on Texel NH and later on 23 June 2019 on Ameland Fr. The bird from 2024 was also from the Western subspecies aigneri like the 2019 bird.
Go to the main-index, the 2024-index or the next new species, the Dark-sided Flycatcher?