On Schiermonnikoog many kinds of plants and animals live on a very small surface. That’s because the island had a lot of different landscapes: from the mudflats to the dunes and from the forest to the Westerplas. In every landscape different kinds of animals and plants find a place to live.
Birds
Schiermonnikoog is a true bird paradise. On the island you can spot many different bird species, often in large numbers. An important reason for this is the absence of land-predators. Schiermonnikoog therefore is a relatively safe place for birds. Ground breeders don’t have to be afraid for looting foxes. Another reason that so many birds choose Schiermonnikoog is the abundance of food. On the mudflats they can find large quantities of worms, shells, shrimps and crabs. Perfect nutrition for birds. Finally, the Wadden Sea is perfectly situated on their migration route. Many birds make a stopover in the Wadden Sea when travelling between their breeding grounds in the north and their wintering areas in the south. In the migration periods the mudflats are teeming with wading birds.
One of the most prominent bird species on Schiermonnikoog is the spoonbill. From February onwards the spoonbills return from their wintering areas in Southern Europe and Africa. Every summer more than two hundred pairs of spoonbills breed on the island! Often you can spot them from the bird-watching huts at the Westerplas. Biologists do a lot of spoonbill research on Schiermonnikoog.
Plants
More than five hundred plant species grow on Schiermonnikoog. On the salt marshes and in the dunes many plant species can be found.
The salt marshes are regularly flooded with salt water, so the plants that grow there must be able to cope with that. Consequently, the salt marshes have their own vegetation, with plants that you won’t find anywhere else, e.g. sea lavender and glasswort.
In the dunes of Schiermonnikoog many flowers bloom in all sorts of lavish colours, like the yellow of evening primrose and great mullein. The beautiful flowers of grass-of-Parnassus (or bog star) are white; they flourish in large quantities, especially in August. Viper’s bugloss or blueweed has blue flowers and can be seen all summer. When you visit the island in June, the dune valleys have a pink hue because of the many orchids that grow there.
Sea creatures
Schiermonnikoog is surrounded by the sea – the Wadden Sea on the southside, the North Sea on the northside. The animals that live in the sea you don’t get to see very often on the island, but on the beach and on the mudflats, you frequently find remnants of these animals, in the form of shells and other vestiges. The beach of Schiermonnikoog is a perfect place to look for shells. Here you can find many different sorts of shells, some of them quite rare. The reason for this is the fact that on the east side of the island a couple of deep channels run near the coastline. They transport shells that live in the deeper parts of the North Sea to the beach of Schiermonnikoog.
An example of a rare shell that you can find on the island is the ocean quahog, a beautiful and large, thick shell. The animal that lives in it, is the oldest animal in the world: an ocean quahog can become more than five hundred years old!
Schiermonnikoog is also a good place to find other remnants of sea creatures: different sorts of crabs, cuttlebones of the common cuttlefish, skeletons of sea urchins, fish vertebra, you name it. In this way you can see a lot of sea beasts without entering the water.
Mammals
You won’t see many different mammal species on Schiermonnikoog. Of course, you can meet rabbits and hares, hedgehogs scavenge the island during the evening and in the night, and some mice, shrews and bats also live on the island.
Probably the most inspiring mammal of Schiermonnikoog is the seal. Two different seal species live in the Wadden Sea and in the North Sea around the island: the common seal and the grey seal. The grey seal is much bigger than the common seal and has an elongated snout. Seals, mostly common seals, often take a rest on the Balg, the easternmost point of the island.
When you are lucky, you might encounter a seal elsewhere on the beach Sometimes young seals are lying there; they look very cute and occasionally even make crying noises, but it’s not unusual for a seal pup to lie alone on the beach for hours. The mother is out hunting for fish; she will return to suckle her youngster. So please keep your distance and leave the seal pup where it lies.
Wadden library
Do you want to know more about a specific species? The Waddenbieb of our colleagues from Ecomare on Texel contains a lot of information about the plants and animals of the Wadden Sea and its islands (in Dutch).
