Peekaboo!

A Brussels birder located this Tawny Owl roosting in a Brussels park on 1st January and it has had a steady stream of admirers since then.  I've been to see it twice but this was the first time the light was good enough for me to get a picture.  I also got to see a Middle Spotted Woodpecker and there was a large group of at least 45 Redwings feeding on the football pitch.

R.I.P., Maggie

There has been a pair of Magellan Geese at the atomium for as long as I can remember.  Yesterday, however, I went there to see the wagtails coming to their traditional roost site (counting at least 31 White plus a male Pied) and only saw the male.  After a little investigation, I was saddened to discover the female was found dead last year, leaving the male all on his own.  R.I.P., Maggie.

Zooming around Zeeland

Whilst most Dutch birders were twitching a male Siberian Rubythroat which had turned up in a North Holland garden over the weekend, I was doing my annual tour around Zeeland with my Dutch friends.  Originally started as a 'wild goose chase' to enjoy the big numbers of geese or just a long day out to get our year lists off to a good start, it has become more of a rarity chase over the past few years.  In 2012 we succesfully twitched a Hume's Leaf Warbler, in 2013 we added House Crow to our European lists by visiting the small population at Hoek van Holland, in 2014 we saw both Two-barred Crossbill and the overwintering Hawk Owl, and last year it was the turn of Oriental Turtle Dove.  This year's target was another lifer; the female Pine Bunting which has been present for over a month.  Absolutely everybody in Dutch birding has seen it by now so, in stark contrast to the crowds up north, it was really nice to have this Siberian rarity to ourselves.  We got excellent looks at her but the wind was blowing right at us from across the Oosterschelde so we didn't stay there for long.  We then went back to the day's roots, so to speak, visiting some of the best spots in Zeeland, seeing tons of Brent and quite a few Barnacle Geese, and racking up a decent day list of 68 species without really trying.

Red-breasted Mergansers, with their shaggy crests, are always fun to see as they are rare in Belgium, and the Brouwersdam added Goldeneye, Eider, Common Scoter, Slavonian Grebe, Kittiwake and a Grey Seal to the list.  We reached our final destination of the day, where we were hoping to connect with a Little Bunting, at the same time as a big hailstorm and the light was fading fast so I only managed to hear it call before we had to leave.  As we walked out onto the promontory, however, we heard a strange chattering noise we all knew we had heard somewhere before but just couldn't place, until we turned round and discovered this large group of flamingos!  It contained both Greater and Chilean, with lots of juvenile birds, plus a few Caribbean hybrids, and must therefore be the mixed breeding colony from the Zwillbrocker Venn in Germany which migrates to the Dutch coast every winter.

2015 review

Well, we are almost half way through January so my review of last year's birding (and butterflying) highlights is well overdue.

January - Wallcreeper; a new bird for my Belgian list after a Walloon birder, convinced there must be at least one overwintering somewhere in Belgium, started prospecting all the likely habitat and eventually found one on the citadel of Dinant.
February - Barnacle Goose; huge numbers of this species seen during two trips to the coast, with at least 1350 of them in the Uitkerkse Polders.

March - Black Woodpecker; two males watched sky-pointing for at least ten minutes at Kalmthout Heath.
April - Fulmar; probably my best view ever as one flew low over my head on Great Yarmouth beach.
This was also the month I finally found my first Large Tortoiseshell butterfly.
May - White-backed Woodpecker; excellent view of an unexpected, self-found individual on the outskirts of Vienna, one of five species of woodpecker I saw that morning.
June - Shag; a fearless immature of the distinctive Mediterranean race desmarestii, which I'd not seen before, swimming amongst the bathing holidaymakers in Majorca!
July - Melodious Warbler; one located by its strange, rattling call in the south of Belgium.
A quiet month for birds, I had one day with 19 species of butterfly including my first Marbled Fritillary.
August - Dotterel; after two unsuccessful twitches I managed to relocate a group of 16 in some fields in Flemish Brabant, finally adding this long overdue species to my Belgian list.
September - Spoonbill; seen three times at the coast during the month with an impressive migration of around 80 birds over the polders on 25th.
October - Redwing; the very first individual of the autumn for Brussels on 1st with good numbers on migration towards the end of the month.

November - White Helmetshrike; not an easy choice with so many new birds seen in The Gambia but this one stood out of the fieldguide as one I really wanted to see and, having seen four of them really well, I can say it looks even better in the flesh, especially that ridiculously long, cream-tipped, white crest!
December - Shoveler; above-average numbers at my local patch throughout the month with a record count of 26 at the end of the month.

As you can see, it's not all about rarities as I find big numbers or unusual behaviour just as enjoyable.  I did see five new species in Europe, though, namely Oriental Turtle Dove in The Netherlands (January), two fully grown, juvenile Saker Falcons on their nest in Slovakia (May), and Balearic Warbler, Moltoni's Warbler and Thekla Lark in Majorca (June), with another 144 lifers during my week in The Gambia.  My 2015 year-list totalled 433 species, exactly 200 of which were in Belgium, 254 in Europe.  The bird of the year title goes to the White-backed Woodpecker I found in Vienna.  I had only ever glimpsed them in flight before in Finland and Poland so it was very satisfying to find my own and finally get to see it well.

The Gambia - part 4

Abyssinian Roller

My last full day of guided birding saw us heading to another area of open woodland at Marakissa.  This was, however much degraded and very busy, and the repetition of the same kind of habitat led us to finding only seven new species, a Western Band Snake-Eagle carrying a large snake being the highlight.  A short boat trip from the nearby Kingfisher's Lodge, where an African Scops-Owl became the sixth owl species of my trip, provided a bit of variety but, all in all, it felt like a wasted day.  I thus decided to add a half-day trip to Kartong wetlands for my final day in The Gambia and it was very nice to do some wetland birding for a change.  A group of African Spoonbills flew over as soon as we stepped out of the minibus, a Beaudouin's Snake-Eagle (below) posed nicely, and I saw my only Red-billed Queleas of the trip.  Palearctic migrants were very much in evidence too, such as several hunting Marsh Harriers, Whinchat and Woodchat Shrike, which bumped up the list nicely, taking my total tally to 224 species over the week, 144 of which were lifers.  I ended up having 4.5 days with my guide at a very reasonable price and can thoroughly recommend him should you want to use his services; http://bestgambianbirdguide.blogspot.co.uk/

 

Juvenile African Pygmy-Geese

 Common Tiger butterfly

The Gambia - part 3

 Western Red Colobus Monkeys

For my second day of guided birding in The Gambia, we just spent the morning at the famous Abuko Nature Reserve, a place I'd always wanted to go ever since, as a child, I received a set of stamps depicting birds of the reserve.  Incidentally, I saw all four of the birds shown during my stay.  I also read somewhere that it is the closest tropical forest to Europe!  It was here that I expected to see my first turacos, and Violet Turaco was very conspicuous, whilst I would have walked right under the pair of Green Turacos sitting quietly in their favourite tree if my guide hadn't known where to look for them.  Having seen so many new birds already, I only added another 14 during the morning, before spending a quiet afternoon around the pool ready for the next full day of birding.

This started off at Pirang Forest, where I saw my first African Pied Hornbills and there was a stakeout for the elusive White-spotted Flufftail.  We were walked to a bench deep in the forest, spotting an African Goshawk on the way, and sat there for two very long hours waiting for the bird to appear.  I and my fellow companions from Scotland, who had been trying every year for the past nine years to see the bird, had long given up when a beautiful male finally walked right out into the open making the long wait worthwhile.
For the afternoon, we visited Faraba Bush Track, a beautiful area of open, savannah-type woodland nearby.  This provided by far the most exciting and enjoyable moment of my entire stay when a single Eurasian Blackcap heralded the start of a mixed flock containing around 20 species, with familiar European species such as Willow and Melodious Warblers feeding alongside the exotic-sounding Yellow-bellied Hyliota and a scarce White-breasted Cuckooshrike.  Exhilarated, I returned to the hotel having seen another 22 new species during the day.

Swallow-tailed and Little Bee-Eaters