Golden goldeneye

As you've probably guessed from the lack of posts lately, I've not been out birding much the past couple of weeks and, when I have, there was very little to write about.  Today was particularly frustrating as I added three species to my year list but didn't get a good look at any of them.  First of all, in the Forêt de Soignes/Zoniënwoud, I glimpsed a Lesser Redpoll as it flew over calling. 
In the afternoon, I went for a walk on Kalmthout Heath, where a group of 30 geese passed low overhead, their calls giving them away as Tundra Bean Geese.  I also saw a very distant passerine feeding at the water's edge, which could have been anything really but the behaviour and habitat best fitted Water Pipit, which I later heard calling.  I may even have heard a Penduline Tit flying over but I couldn't locate it and I don't hear them often enough to be sure of that one.  Other than that and several Crested Tits, it was very quiet but the above first-winter, male Goldeneye entertained me for a while before providing a nice photo opportunity as it swam through the glow of the setting sun.

Rocky horror!

I was in Holland over the weekend and went to IJmuiden pier on Saturday, where I enjoyed watching this Rock Pipit.  At one point, it flew up ahead of me and I thought I had flushed it until a Sparrowhawk almost flew straight through my legs after it!  I felt quite violated as it seemed as if the Sparrowhawk had used me to sneak up on the pipit so I was very pleased to see it get away. 
On Sunday, we went to the Maasvlakte, where an immature Long-legged Buzzard has returned (from where, I wonder) for its second winter.  It took us a long time to see it but we eventually got distant looks at it being mobbed by a Kestrel and with a Common Buzzard alongside for comparison.  Some Pink-footed Geese circling around above us where the first birds we saw and the very last were three Woodlarks feeding at the roadside, some other highlights being displaying Red-breasted Mergansers, a Green Sandpiper, and a high-tide roost of at least 900 Curlew.
Today, I twitched the first-winter Pied Wheatear which turned up in Belgium while I was away.  Now this is how a twitch is supposed to happen - I walked around 20 minutes from the nearest station and arrived to see the bird sitting in full view on a signpost.  I could have turned round and left after ten minutes but stayed a bit longer and watched it catching grubs along the railway tracks although it was a bit too far away to photograph.   

Never the twain

Last Friday, the last day of October, it was 20°C yet, despite the springlike weather, there was a constant stream of migrants.  I was at the coast looking for geese with a visiting birder but it was hard to take our eyes off what was going on in the skies, with large groups of Starlings, Chaffinches and Skylarks, an impressive formation of around 160 Cormorants, and smaller numbers of Redwing, Linnet, Siskin and Reed Bunting all heading south.  We finally dragged ourselves away to search for geese, only to spot a Short-eared Owl migrating along the sea-dyke as we moved into the polders.  Once there, we found around 200 Pink-footed Geese, a few hundred White-fronts and a single Barnacle as well as the obligatory Greylags and Canadas.  Migration still continued in earnest, though, and, just after midday, an Osprey drifted slowly over but the surprise of the day was the unlikely combination of 8 White-fronts arriving in v-formation together with a single Spoonbill, which had difficulty keeping up with the geese as they twisted down to join the others already feeding on the ground.  As we reached Ostend in the late afternoon, a Brambling called as it passed overhead, taking our day's tally to an impressive 73 species, but the day's migration was not done yet as I could still hear Redwings passing over Brussels well into the night.