Wildlife to see in the Netherlands in May
5 spectacles at their peak in the Netherlands in May. Wild animals only: no zoos, no wildlife parks, no hunting. Open Netherlands in May in the interactive calendar for listening times on the day you pick.
At their peak in May
Meadow-bird chorus: godwits, redshanks and lapwings over the Frisian poldersThe 'grutto-grutto' yodel of godwits in tumbling display flight, redshanks' ringing calls, lapwings' wheezing aerobatics and wing-thrum, skylarks, snipe drumming and the bleating of hundreds of birds at once — the sound of the Dutch spring polder.
Tree frog choruses of Zeeuws-VlaanderenA rattling, surprisingly loud 'kè-kè-kè-kè' chorus from hundreds of tree frogs around the old fortress moats and pools — audible across the polder — with marsh frogs and nightingales behind; the ramparts of Retranchement alone hold a few hundred.
Breskens: spring migration over the Westerschelde dikeA river of flight calls — meadow pipit, yellow wagtail, finches, linnets — low over your head, with the Westerschelde ships behind; screaming swift flocks on a May top day; harriers silent overhead; a crowd of counters calling out species.
Wadden Sea high-tide wader roosts: Westhoek and the Frisian coastThe rising murmur of tens of thousands of dunlin and curlew sandpipers packed on the roost, then the rush of wings as the flock lifts and turns; curlew and grey plover calls; brent geese in autumn; wind over the flats.
Biesbosch beavers at duskA beaver's tail slap, gnawing on willow, the push of its wake in a still creek; reed warblers and cuckoos at dusk in May; the murmur of thousands of geese and ducks settling on the open water at night; ospreys calling in spring.