A walk along the North Sea in Texel

Texel

Our second day on the island was xpent mostly walking. We rode our bikes down to the beach near De Koog and we walked along the beach up to ab area called De Slufter.

The beach was largely deserted and the Beach huts were not in use yet. The Northe Sea had washed up a lot of foamy spume which seemed unusual. What causes this? The weather was fairly warm and blustery and we ambled as far as we could before reaching a stream running into the sea.

So we turned inland and followed a trail through the sand dunes before finding a cafe on the other side of the Sanddijk. We settled down to large mugs of hot chocolate a dn some huge pancakes!



Our walk home took us along the base of this same Sanddijk and past De Muys. Most of the trails here were out of bounds because it's the nesting season. This was a bit disappointing, but we did see plenty of bird-life including our first Spoonbills.



We eventually found our way back to where we had left our bikes and then pedalled the short distance home.

Garden Birds

As our garden matures (it is five years old now) we have found that more and more different species of birds are visiting. Last year we had Great Tits on the feeder but this year it's mostly Blue-tits. the most recent visitors though have been Greenfinches and Collared Doves.

Our most common visitors are a pair of Blackbirds and a Robin or two, though we don't see much of the Robin during the spring. The other day I was surprised to see a Song Thrush too. All very encouraging.

Just outside the garden on an old Willow stump I saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker the other morning and from time to time we see a pair of Pheasants in the back field. usually we just hear them.

Other birds in the vicinty are the local corvids; Rooks, Jackdaws and Magpies, though I've never seen them in the garden itself.

We see several other species too as they fly over; Gulls of course, Black-headed, Mallard Ducks and a commuting Grey Heron.