Birding was not the reason to come to Amsterdam today. The reason was a lunch with good friends, at a cafe/restaurant on the edge of the Oosterpark in Amsterdam.
It has been known for some time that the black-crowned night heron resides in the Oosterpark, but it just hadn’t happened yet to visit him there. With the camera in hand, after lunch (and an ice cream) we went for a walk through the Oosterpark where we saw two of them within a few minutes. One retreated to the spruce (nest?) and the other stayed nicely for the photo.
Whether these two birds are wild specimens or whether they ever escaped from Artis remains the question. The black-crowned night heron is in any case very rare in the Netherlands. All the more fun to see it in such a central place in the city – where the many people in the park probably have no idea.
