Nutcracker sweet

Such was the view during a 16-km hike across the Reuland plateau on Monday.  This is the best place in Belgium I know to see Nutcrackers and the three of us were not disappointed, with eight different sightings of these shy birds flying back and forth, and another perched at close range for us to admire.  The day started off very promisingly indeed with both Hawfinch and Bullfinch almost as soon as we stepped out of the train, and the first half hour was rather overwhelming, with groups of Fieldfares flying in all directions and quite a bit of visible migration, mostly Chaffinches and Starlings, as well as four Rook.  We kept hearing and catching glimpses of Common Crossbills in flight and eventually found a dozen or so feeding atop a spruce tree as another sang its melodious, almost Woodlark-like song in the distance.  Having enjoyed the Nutcracker feast, we continued down into Stavelot, where I heard a call I didn't recognise and looked up to see a long-tailed passerine fly quickly past us.  The call didn't fit any of the pipits and it was too big for a wagtail so I was stumped until I got home and thumbed through the field guide for potential solutions, this flight call of Great Grey Shrike perfectly matching what I heard.  This brought our very successful day's total to 50 species, which, considering the total lack of gulls and shorebirds and only Mallard and Mute Swan representing the waterfowl, is amazing for this time of year.

Winter's a-coming!

I had another walk around my Brussels patch yesterday in the vain hope of finally finding one of the many Yellow-browed Warblers that are indundating Western Europe this autumn.  It was very quiet, however, although I did temporarily convince myself a backlit Firecrest was my target species until I got a better view of it.  Instead, I had to make do with admiring ducks but, when the Mandarins are in fresh, breeding plumage, that's not such a bad thing I guess.

Right at the end of the walk, though, I did have a little purple patch, running into a late male Blackcap just before I found a hawthorn tree covered in berries which hosted several Song Thrush, at least two Redwing and a couple of Brambling for good measure, both of the latter being my first records this season for what are typical winter birds in Brussels.  Winter can't be far off now even if it was 24°C here today!

Autumn colours

Following on from last week's Song Thrushes, there is now a big wave of Chaffinches, with no less than 152,000 counted passing The Hague on Saturday.  I tried my own little migration count at my regular patch on the edge of Brussels this morning but the weather wasn't really conducive to big numbers.  Apart from double-figures of both Song Thrushes and Chaffinches, I only managed to identify one Reed Bunting, four Siskins and a distant Sparrowhawk.  There are still a lot of Firecrests and Chiffchaffs in the bushes, however, and, after spotting this tiny Wood Mouse crossing the path, I managed to get a nice, autumnal shot of it surrounded by fallen leaves.

New beginnings

As readers of my previous blog will no doubt have noticed, I've been having all sorts of problems with it.  I have thus decided to create a new one here in order to keep you updated about my birding (as well as butterflying, dragonflying and more) around Belgium and beyond.
Autumn migration is in full swing here and Brussels Park right in the city center was full of Chiffchaffs and Firecrests this morning, with a few Song Thrushes still passing overhead after the huge day of migration on Saturday, which saw around 20,000 of them reported from two migration counts in The Netherlands.