Home, where the birds sing

It was late January when I was awakened by the deep "hoé-oe" of a male tawny owl. In the dead of night, he was calling for a female. For me, it was the first sign during the still short and dark days that spring was knocking at the door. It took a few nights, but just as the male's calls seemed to grow more desperate, a female responded with her high-pitched "kivik." I could sleep peacefully again; love had been found. By now, the female tawny owl is sitting on her eggs, and we're waiting for the first owlet (tip: check out beleefdelente.nl).

I must admit, the tawny owl wasn't always my spring bird. It was an adjustment when I moved to the forest. No longer was the black-tailed godwit heralding spring with its bustling "gruttooo, gruttooo" over my garden while the spring sun warmed my cheeks. Instead, it was an owl in the dead of night, far from the moment you can go outside without a jacket. But now, I'm used to it, and it even fills me with hope when the male tawny owl wakes me at night. The warm days are on their way.

It truly felt like spring when the blackbird began to sing from his high perch on the roof. Ready to attract the ladies and fiercely defend his territory from other blackbird males. After the blackbird, it went quickly. The rolling whistles of the nuthatch are now rapidly alternating with the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker, and even outside the forest, the birds are making their presence known. The grass in the meadows is waving, and that's when people in the Zaan gardens hear the "gruttooo, gruttooo" again.

Below are two walks in areas that both feel like home to me, where the birds sing their highest songs. So put on your walking shoes and look around.

Queen of the Meadow

Walking Route: Schaalsmeerpolder in the Wormer and Jisperveld
Distance: 4.4 km
Starting Point: De Poelboerderij, Veerdijk 106, Wormer

I come from the Zaan region, a bare polder landscape full of windmills and factories. When I look at the Zaan region from a distance, I sometimes wonder what I find so appealing about it. But the smell of cocoa brings warm memories from the past. There's no better place to cycle against the wind than here. And if you try hard enough, you'll discover far more birds in that seemingly bare polder than you expect. For example, in the Schaalsmeerpolder, where you now find both winter guests and homecomers. A unique moment in the year. When darkness falls, you're whistled at by hundreds of wigeons searching for green meadows. During the day, they peacefully float in one of the ditches. The males polish their chestnut heads, while the less conspicuous reddish-brown females doze off with their gray-blue bills tucked deep into their feathers. They do everything to start their journey home, far away in Scandinavia or Siberia, looking their best and fittest.

Behind those ditches, you see the homecomers. The black-tailed godwit, for instance, just back from an all-inclusive resort in Guinea-Bissau or Senegal. When you look at that graceful godwit, with her elegant long legs carrying a perfectly developed reddish-brown bird body, you can hardly believe that this 40 cm bird travels over five thousand kilometers without stopping in three days. When the first godwit appeared in the polder after a long winter, I used to cheer along the field. Spring! I still watch our kings and queens of the peat meadows, but with more melancholy. I see how they struggle to find food with their long bills in often too dry soil. How they desperately take flight to keep crows and other predators at bay, protecting their vulnerable chicks, often against better judgment. How the young, as true nest fugitives, immediately have to search for their food, but those crawling and flying insects don't come by because they're no longer there. Because even those little critters don't find food in the monotonous green grass, which once had fifty shades.

But fortunately, here in the Schaalsmeerpolder, the godwits are doing well, unlike in many other meadows. And so this is the place to admire their beauty while walking, with the smell of chocolate in your nose. And if you look closely, you'll distinguish many more species among the godwits, such as the redshank or the lapwing. Or maybe even a skylark. The Schaalsmeerpolder is a place where not only the godwit but also I always feel a bit at home.

Laughed at and Encouraged in the Kaapse Bossen

Walking Route: Highlights of the Kaapse Bossen – Doorn
Distance: 8.5 km
Starting Point: Parking lot Kaapse Bossen, Leersumsestraatweg, Doorn

I traded the Zaan polder for the Kaapse Bossen. From daily slippery wet boots full of polder clay and always seeing the weather coming from afar, to sand in my eyes and everywhere high and dry on the mountain, not seeing the forest for the trees. I left for one love and gained many more.

Where I could effortlessly distinguish the meadow birds, in the forest I initially didn't get much further than a chaffinch and a great tit. Of course, those are just ordinary garden birds, so that was a bit of cheating. But now my skill has increased, and I discover species after species in my new backyard. Not rarely do I feel laughed at when a green or black woodpecker chuckles from a branch while I'm pulled along in fluorescent yellow and pink by dogs Moesel and Beer during a run. More often, I feel carried. Carried by the cacophony of sounds, especially now. The cheerful chirping and singing of the tits, one with a crest on its head, the other with a long tail.

 

Especially the latter, I see and hear a lot now: the long-tailed tit. All winter, these cute white-black balls on sticks have been moving around with a family group, now it's time to form pairs. The females leave their own group and go looking for a male in another group. The males occasionally fly past me with an undulating, butterfly-like flight as I'm pulled through the forest. The goal of the long-tailed tit males? Impress the long-tailed tit females. But the frivolous dance also gives me the energy to run miles further. Sometimes so much that I conquer the dozens of steps of the lookout tower to look further into the distance than I ever could in North Holland.