Bird lovers can indulge themselves in the Lieveren area. De Grijze Wouw flies around there. Last night the bird was seen there for the first time. And today it is still in the area.
“It is clearly a gray kite. He is in the tip of a dead tree and is very characteristic of nicely upright,” says ecologist Hans Dekker Verdends while he is peering through his binoculars. De Wouw is normally in Southwest Europe, in Spain, Portugal and southern France. Due to climate change, that gray kite pulls a little more up to the north. “That does not mean that dozens of those kite are now flying around here, there are at most a few. But since yesterday he has discovered the north of Drenthe.” Dekker suspects that this is the first gray Wouw, which is showing itself in Drenthe this summer.
Bird lovers suspect that De Grijze Wouw who is now at Lieveren was in a nature reserve of Staatsbosbeheer near Staphorst and Rouveen in recent weeks. “There he was last seen at half past nine yesterday morning and then he flew away. Last night a woman discovered him close by Lieveren. And that in Staphorst is still gone. For such a bird it is only a few hours of flying so there is a good chance that it is the same,” says Dekker.
This morning the observation of De Grijze Wouw was reported online and some bird lovers jumped in their car. At Staphorst, dozens of people were watching De Wouw every day. “I also expect some gray Wouw tourism here,” says the ecologist laughing. “But what is fun, people from this region often come to take a look. Because the beast is hunting here is because of how the area is set up here. It is a kind of thank you from the beast how it is decorated and managed here.”
How long you can still spot the kite is difficult to predict. “Last year there was one in the Fochteloërveen, who was there for a few weeks. But at a certain point it will be itchy for such a beast and he flies further.” Usually the Gray Wouw flies back to the warm south around September. And the weather does not work in that regard either. This weekend it gets colder and it will rain more often, and the Gray Wouw does not like that.