Distant Great Spotted Cuckoos by Massimiliano Dettori
Since my Spanish trip towards the end of April, I've had very little time for birding. In fact, the only Belgian birding I managed was a morning around my regular patch in Brussels, where this Carrion Crow seemed to be compensating for its drab plumage by perching amongst some blossom.
Other than that, the park behind my apartment turned up yet another surprise in the form of a Grasshopper Warbler singing briefly one morning, and the return of our summer visitors has added Blackcap and Swift to my ever-increasing balcony list.
Other than that, the park behind my apartment turned up yet another surprise in the form of a Grasshopper Warbler singing briefly one morning, and the return of our summer visitors has added Blackcap and Swift to my ever-increasing balcony list.
Last week, however, I was in Stockholm and, thanks to some helpful local birders, I got to visit the lovely Lake Angarn (see below) to the north of the city. Here, Yellowhammers were singing, Cranes were calling and I got to watch a pair of summer-plumaged Slavonian Grebes mating. The marsh was littered with Wood Sandpipers, probably 150 to 200 of them, which kept rising up and moving around in large groups, and a small group of Ruff were busy displaying. The main reason we were there, though, was for Great Snipe, as this area often attracts them on migration and my visit just happened to coincide with the peak time for them in the Stockholm area. We waited and waited and waited until, finally, just before 10pm, we heard the strange, simultaneous clicking and duck-like whistling of a Great Snipe singing at close range. Of course, by that time it was too dark to see anything so it became my 2nd heard-only lifer in less than three weeks, but an exhilarating experience nonetheless.
