Over one million birds spotted during national bird count

During the national bird count, over 70,000 bird enthusiasts have already reported one million birds by 2 p.m. on Sunday. The national garden bird count by Vogelbescherming Nederland started on Friday. On mijntuinvogeltelling.nl, the bird counts can be submitted until Monday noon.

The organization is offering an interim count to encourage people to count birds in their gardens or on their balconies for half an hour on Sunday afternoon. So far, the house sparrow is once again in the lead, followed by the great tit and the blue tit. According to the bird observatory, a relatively large number of siskins and redpolls have been counted this year.

According to Timo Roeke from Birdlife, other notable sightings include five passerines, 55 grey wagtails, eight water rails and an oriental turtle dove. The latter species has only been seen 11 times in the Netherlands so far. Dozens of blackcaps and chiffchaffs were also reported, species that are normally native to the south but are increasingly wintering in the Netherlands due to the milder winters.

Last year, 140,000 people took part in the count, most of them on Sunday.