Bill and Erin Woods,

What a wonderful report on your bicycle trip through my native Holland
(10/17). It sounds like you got around and were well rewarded for your
efforts. It's been a couple of years since I was there, but many of the place
names you mentioned sure brought back memories.

The very first time I went bird watching was when I was eighteen (no, my
parents still can't tell most birds apart...). Some school friends took me to
the Knardijk one very cold February morning.

The history of the Knardijk and adjacent nature preserves is interesting. I
believe it was in the mid or late-sixties when a dike was put around a shallow
stretch of the IJsselmeer and the water pumped out. To speed up the process of
drying out the marshy areas, airplanes dispersed marsh plant seeds and let
nature take its course.

Development into agricultural land, industrial areas and cities took longer
than expected and by the time serious development was planned for some of
these areas they had been colonized by many birds. Within ten years suddenly
close to 50 % of the nesting Great Cormorants in Europe were nesting near the
Knardijk (and Naardermeer). So much for developing the area. Since the Great
Cormorants were endangered, the area was set aside and later managed for
wildlife. One of my favorite early morning sights; streams of single-file
Great Cormorants flying high from their nesting grounds to their fishing
grounds. Later in the morning birds laden with food, their bellies practically
touching the water, would labor to gain enough height to clear the dike on
their way to nests with young.

Back then, in the early days, there was one blind at the end of a very muddy,
undeveloped path. The climate there is the same as in Western Washington, so
you can picture the clay path, ankle-deep, in February. You probably walked
the asphalt path which now has several blinds.

I remember a Sunday morning one Spring. Some buddies and I had spent the early
morning in the blind. As we came back to the car on the dike, several people
in their Sunday-best, the ladies in high heels and all, asked us if this was
the path to the observation blind. They had heard it was a good spot to watch
birds. Sure, we said, wondering why these people didn't take a clue from our
boots, which were covered in sticky clay almost up to their rims....

Sometimes people ask me how I got started on birdwatching. I tell them I spent
four hours freezing my buns off in a blind on piling in a Dutch marsh one
year. And I was hooked.

Thank you for bringing back fond memories.

By the way, did you report the Pied-billed Grebe to local birders? I believe
this species is still very rare in Holland. My most recent Dutch field guide
reports them from Great Britain only.

If you have the date and exact location of that sighting I would also like to
know that. In February I will start work on the Birds of North America
Pied-billed Grebe account, so I will want to include reports such as yours.

Thanks in advance,

Martin Muller, Seattle
martinmuller at msn.com