I had a nail-biting start to the New Year as a Wallcreeper was found in Dinant on 30 December but yesterday was the first chance I had to go and see it. Thankfully, it stayed around long enough for me to add it to my Belgian list, which now stands at 299 species! I panicked a little when I arrived in Dinant and couldn't find any other birders but walked the couple of kilometres along the Meuse to the Rocher Bayard (above), where it has also been spending some time, to see a decent-sized crowd staring at the rockface. A Dutch birder, who had come especially, immediately let me get a good look through his telescope before trying to give me directions, but I was then able to watch it for at least half an hour, fluttering around the rockface and flashing its incredible, scarlet wings. It was, of course, too far away for me to get any kind of photograph of it but those with much more professional equipment got some great results; see http://waarnemingen.be/waarneming/view/96911944.
Interestingly, the finders had been prospecting all the likely-looking cliffs in the area, convinced that there must be an overwintering Wallcreeper or two somewhere in Wallonia and, after 26 hours of searching, struck it lucky with this mega bird for Belgium. Spurred on by this and despite having never been to the area, I then walked up a steep-sided valley just to the north of Dinant in the hope of finding a Dipper, a species I would normally have to make a special trip to see each year, and one almost flew straight into me! Sometimes, birding can be so straightforward.
