{"id":3359,"date":"2025-12-03T17:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T16:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/?p=3359"},"modified":"2026-01-13T09:40:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T08:40:41","slug":"oostvaardersplassen-almere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/?p=3359","title":{"rendered":"Oostvaardersplassen Almere & Lelystad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over the past few weeks, it has started to become a fixed part of my Wednesday mornings: heading out birding together with a friend. Sometimes we visit familiar areas, sometimes a location where a special sighting has been reported. Generally, I\u2019m not the type of birder who chases rare vagrants only to end up standing among a large group of camouflage-clad strangers. But when a notable sighting occurs relatively close by, it often turns out to be worth the effort. At the same time, I\u2019m also the kind of birder who continues to thoroughly enjoy the more common species of an area \u2014 especially those I don\u2019t encounter as often closer to home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why we headed to Almere and Lelystad today, first to the visitor centre of the Oostvaardersplassen on the Almere side. The ultimate nice-to-have<\/em> would have been a grey kite, but these are currently only being observed at great distances, so I had promised myself not to be disappointed if I didn\u2019t see or photograph one. This year, a great grey shrike has also settled in the area. Although I\u2019ve seen this species closer to home before, it remains a beautiful bird to watch. From its regular hunting perch, it scans the surroundings, waiting for prey before swiftly striking and then returning to the same lookout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, we were able to fully enjoy the wide, open landscapes and the \u2014 for this area fairly common \u2014 white-tailed eagles. The bearded tits also made themselves clearly heard and eventually showed beautifully close to the path. It turned into a pleasant walk; the weather wasn\u2019t entirely on our side, but we enjoyed it immensely nonetheless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Over the past few weeks, it has started to become a fixed part of my Wednesday mornings: heading out birding together with a friend. Sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[150],"tags":[197,236,199],"class_list":["post-3359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-netherlands","tag-oostvaardersplassen","tag-waterral","tag-zeearend"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/wp-content\/uploads\/Oostvaarders-Zeearend-ed.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4J78K-Sb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3359"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3379,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359\/revisions\/3379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rickvanlieshout.nl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}