IJZENDOORN ALJ VAN (1948) On the occurrence of the Slender-billed Curlew in the Netherlands. LIMOSA 21 (4): 113-118.

On Jan. 23, 1947 a specimen of the Slender-billed Curlew was found dead on the tidal flats near the former Island of Wieringen. This specimen is the ninth official record in the Netherlands. Presumably it was a victim of the exceptionally severe winter.
I got into the possession of a local taxidermist, Mr C. Bais, who stuffed the bird and showed it to me in Jan. 1948. He had sexed it as a female. It was in adult dress.
According to Mr C. B a i s the Slender-billed Curlew was sporadically shot on the Island of Wieringen in former times, when Curlews and Whimbrels were still allowed to be killed in the Netherlands, mostly for food. (They were a "dainty dish" according to local gastronomes.).
Mr Bais gave me a sight-account of another Slender-billed Curlew, seen by him in August 1946 in the Wieringermeerpolder, which certainly seems trustworthy. The other 8 Netherlands records of Numenius tenuirostds are listed in Table 1 on page 115, which shows that 5 or 6 were taken in the neighbourhood of the "Waddenzee", the tidal sea between the Friesian Islands and the mainland. The British, German and Belgian records are arranged in Tables 2, 3, and 4, on page 115 and 116. These also show that there is a more or less marked tendency in the Slender-billed Curlew to resort to coastal areas. Moreover they show that Numenius tenuirostris has not been recorded in Western Europe since 1925. The Slender-billed Curlews are chiefly Western Asiatic and East-Russian breeding birds, which seldom stray to Western Europe. They seem to winter mainly in the Mediterranean area.
The deviation in the normal SW migration route might have been influenced by the constant Eastern winds that were prevailing in the abnormal winter of 1946-1947.
Ii: seems very well possible that Numenius tenuirostris passes unnoticed on the mudflats sometimes. So a careful examination of Curlews and Whimbrels whenever the opportunity presents itself, is certainly commendable. It is the writer's conviction that at least adult Slender-billed Curlews can be positively identified in the field under favourable conditions of light. and distance. The photograph on page 114 shows the three Netherlands species of Numenius.

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