The Birds of Vondelpark

This time last year we were preparing for a big trip to Europe. I was pretty excited. And rightly so. It was an absolutely amazing holiday. I've only ever shown you tiny glimpses of it really. Particularly my first trip to Holland. So different to France of course. We loved our time in Holland.

I was of course keen to see some different birds in Holland. In Amsterdam we went to Vondelpark one afternoon. A large park in central Amsterdam. I was a bit disappointed with the park itself- it smelt really quite strongly of beer in some places. The majority of parkgoers seemed to love it though. Master Wicker just reminded me that he renamed this park Bogaan Centraal. Apt.

My first sightings of Egyptian Geese (Alopochen aegyptiaca)
-introduced obviously, it was early summer so there were many geese
families

I'm still not quite sure if that red spot around their eye is creepy or cool.

Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra)
Very familiar to Australians, there are some out the back of my house,
and I've shown you them in Tasmania before

You don't always get a chance to see the ungainly, messy
(and particularly difficult to photograph) Coot youngsters though

Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)

Possibly a juvenile Grey Heron

 Black-Headed Gull
(Larus ridibundus)
An exciting spotting at the time-
many, many more to be seen in Paris

Eurasian Jackdaw (Corvus monedula)
I think I've seen this before in Ireland

Another introduced bird, the Rose-Ringed Parakeet (Psittacula krameri)
a surprising glimpse of the tropics in Europe
there are quite large feral populations in many centres!

Gulls can be tricky when you really don't know the area. I think this is
an European Herring Gull (Larus argentatus)

Not all of the birds were happy to be in the park, some were angry birds.

I'm not totally familiar with all these birds, and am prepared to be considered wrong on some of the IDs.

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme
 now hosted by WestMetroMommy