New 12 months’s resolutions are my Achilles’ heel: I’ve no vices to give up. I don’t drink a lot on Tuesdays, I don’t smoke, and I recycle. For the approaching 12 months, I can promise to take higher footage or I can go for a Massive 12 months 2025 in Rotterdam. For the reason that latter appears extra doable than the previous, that’s determined then.
Each contest wants its guidelines – even if you happen to simply compete in opposition to your self. My rulebook might be easy. The world would be the municipality of Rotterdam, which is massive, however not too massive. Why is that vital? Due to rule quantity 2: I’ll do that Massive 12 months with public transport, using a bicycle or on foot. Conveniently, Rotterdam will present me entry to the ocean, polders, parks and small forests guaranteeing a various avian potential. Birds are in all places…
Rule quantity 3: I might want to see the chicken, not simply hear it, however the music/name/sound does depend as a subject mark. Sufficient about guidelines, what would be the goal for me to beat? For there have to be a goal, how else will I drive up the stress in direction of the top of the 12 months, if you find yourself all on tenterhooks? Will I make it? Will I fail?
Rotterdam shouldn’t be Ecuador. The 2024 Rotterdam Bio-blitz resulted in 107 species. Coincidentally, my eBird life checklist for the province of South Holland (Zuid-Holland) stands at 107 too. So, the goal have to be greater than 107. Avibase gives a guidelines with 491 species for the province. I eliminated all Uncommon/Unintended species – what’s the purpose searching for a chicken that simply will not be there in 2025? That train left me with 287 species in Zuid-Holland. Not Rotterdam, however the entire province. Then I checked what number of birds I understand how and the place to seek out inside the metropolis’s borders. 100 and eight, another than my whole for the province. Oh boy, now what? The 287 is unquestionably too excessive to intention for, 108 too low. The common? Not very authentic. However nonetheless, there’s my purpose: seeing greater than 200 chicken species inside the Rotterdam municipality limits within the 12 months 2025, solely utilizing public transport and a bicycle. I’ll now pause for sceptical laughter.
And that’s how I ended up right here, on a chilly and sunny January morning. I had picked the Kralingse Bos for its potential to ship each waterfowl and forest birds. The forested space is fairly massive and wild for a metropolis park – a lot wilder than Central Park for instance. Makes an attempt are being made to maintain the ever present canines and Lycra folks on the paths by bordering the woods with massive piles of branches and tree trunks. The omnipresent Robins have been grateful for the duvet, and I might want to test this characteristic for songbirds in Spring. The forest birds additional included Nice Tit, Eurasian Blue Tit, Music Thrush, Eurasian Blackbird, and Widespread Chaffinch. Nice Noticed Woodpecker additionally made an look. All the standard suspects have been current on the lake with an sudden Widespread Goldeneye combined in with the Tufted Geese.
Strolling the canine the day past had delivered 6 species. In fact, the morning of the primary day of the 12 months had began in suspense. Will the primary chicken of the Massive 12 months be a Feral Pigeon? I had opened the curtains with trepidation. Thankfully, the New 12 months’s Eve fireworks had scared away each single chicken. Setting off fireworks is definitely unlawful in Rotterdam and 19 different massive Dutch municipalities. We nonetheless watched for hours and hours as one rocket after the opposite exploded. Subsequent time some smug Dutch growth help individual throws “authorized enforcement” in your face, throw this instance again at them. You may quote me. Please.
Oh, the primary chicken of 2025: a Carrion Crow, in all probability searching for severed fingers. Massive 12 months Rotterdam, 4 January 2025, 28 species, 172 to go.
