Pesky Duskys

Two weeks after the huge Skylark migration, it was the turn of Fieldfares to pass through in big numbers this past weekend.  I was in the Ardennes enjoying the autumn colours and we saw several big groups totalling at least 200 birds but we were hiking rather counting.  The migration watchers at Scheveningen (NL), however, managed to count 15,272 of them!  Other good birds in the Ardennes included a Black Woodpecker in a tree right above us, Willow Tit, and a perched (as opposed to the usual in-flight views) Nutcracker.
Today, I was originally planning to go to The Hague to try to see my first Dusky Warbler but it moved further down the coast yesterday, just as another one was found at the Belgian coast.  I thus headed back to Heist instead in the hope of seeing that one but it was nowhere to be found today.  Thankfully, though, it had been found at the same place as the 1st autumn Barred Warbler, which has now been there for three weeks.  We actually walked straight past it last time but it was being very skulky then so nobody really knew if it was still around.  Not so today, as it was showing very well, actively feeding and preening, as soon as I arrived and even allowed me to get a crappy photo as it perched briefly in the open before flying to another section of bushes.

Another Belgian tick, therefore, just nine days after the Hume's Warbler, and a nice consolation prize for failing to see two Dusky Warblers.  Other than that, it was very quiet compared to my last visit and I only saw one Goldcrest all day long.  I finished the day being entertained by a group of Sanderlings running around like clockwork toys on the beach at Ostend and oblivious of all the day-trippers making the most of the ridiculously warm and sunny weather.  Oh, and the Siberian Accentor tally now stands at 190, but still not a single one has been found in Belgium, yet!

Easterly excitement

After the massive Skylark migration of last weekend, I checked the Falsterbo website to try and get an idea where these birds were coming from.  As they had only counted a few hundred Skylarks there, the huge migration was obviously coming from much further east, probably European Russia or even Siberia.  The prolonged, easterly airstream had already brought above average numbers of other eastern species such as Yellow-browed, Hume's, Dusky and Radde's Warblers, Pine Bunting and Red-flanked Bluetail to our shores, but nobody could have predicted the crazy turn of events which ensued.  On 4th October, a Siberian Accentor was found in Finland.  With roughly 35 records in Europe over the past 100 years, this is a true mega but for one to turn up under such conditions was not really unexpected.  Two days later, however, another was found in Sweden - two in the same autumn is exceptional; surely that had to be it, but no!  Two more, one each in Sweden and Finland, were found on 9 October, with two new birds also found on 10 and 11 October.  By 12 October, when another 7 were found, including the first outside Sweden and Finland with the first-ever for Germany, birders had realised something phenomenal was going on and we were experiencing an unprecented influx of this Siberian rarity which should be heading south-east to spend the winter in China, Korea and Japan.  The snowball has just kept on rolling and the total now stands at a ridiculous 146 birds, with over two-thirds of them in Sweden and Finland.  The remainder have been shared between Denmark (9), UK (8), Germany (7), Estonia (6), Poland (6), Latvia (5), Norway (5), Lithuania (2), and a one-day bird on Friday at the Maasvlakte representing the first for The Netherlands.  With all this in mind, and a day's coastal birding planned with a visiting birder on Saturday, I quickly changed our first destination to the dunes south of the Zwin in the hope of perhaps finding the first for Belgium!
Birds were everywhere, with Chaffinches all over the bushes and lots of thrushes flying around but we didn't find anything rare at all, the highlights being a migrating Woodlark and a few Brambling.  There were lots of Goldcrests, too, and we eventually got good looks at a Firecrest or two, with a juvenile Marsh Harrier migrating over Heist.  The Visserskruis migrant trap within Zeebrugge harbour was literally hopping with Robins and Redwings, but the only warblers we could find were Chiffchaffs.  By the end of the day, we'd seen tons of the commoner species but just had time for one last twitch to the very obliging Hume's Leaf Warbler near Blankenberge, which promptly became my 305th species in Belgium.  We had a great day, therefore, with a total of 75 species, but the hunt for Belgium's first Siberian Accentor goes on.
A very nice summary of the invasion (so far!), together with some nice pictures, can be found on Dutch Birding.

Boom!

There was phenomenal migration of Skylarks this weekend.  The first thing I noticed was when I got home yesterday evening and saw a small group of birds heading over my balcony towards the setting sun.  I couldn't identify them but the flight action made me think of larks so I went online to investigate since birds passing over the centre of Brussels so late in the day was a good indicator something big was happening.  Sure enough, migration watches all over Belgium and The Netherlands had reported day counts of 3000-4000 or more Skylarks, smashing the daily total records in several places.  With excellent migration weather forecast this morning miraculously coinciding with my day off work, I decided to start the day with my own migration count from the luxury of my balcony.  From 8am to 9am, I counted at least 115 Skylarks plus one possible Woodlark passing overhead, with a supporting cast of 110 Starlings, around 50 Chaffinches, 4 White Wagtails, one flock of unidentified corvids, possibly Rooks, several Song Thrushes, and a probable Reed Bunting.  It was tempting to stay and keep on counting but, with so much happening plus lots of good rarities at the coast, I just had to get out of Brussels.  Within ten minutes of arriving, I was admiring this beautiful Red-breasted Flycatcher, which has been gracing a small patch of trees in Ostend for the past twelve days.

Not wasting any time, I then moved to the migrant trap of the Sashul in Heist where both Yellow-browed and  Pallas' Warblers had been reported.  The latter had not been seen for over two hours but I soon heard the distinctive, disyllabic call of a Yellow-browed Warbler and, after a lot of cat-and-mouse searching, I eventually got a good look at it.  Whilst I was watching it, however, another one called behind me so there were definitely two of them present, together with both Firecrest and Goldcrest pretending to be the lost Pallas' Warbler.  After that, I just had a quick look at the first fields of the Uitkerkse Polders, where a group of almost 600 White-fronted Geese contained single Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese, and a Fieldfare flew off with a group of Redwings, no doubt heading into the night on the next step of their migration.  All day long, though, I kept hearing and seeing the odd Skylark on migration, with groups of Chaffinches coming in off the sea.  Looking at the various migration counts for today, yesterday's totals pale into insignificance with one site to the north of Antwerp recording a staggering 12071 Skylarks today.  Boom!

The last of their kind

I took a walk around my patch yesterday, recording around 40 species in a couple of hours.  A nice, mixed flock, more typical of the Amazon than the outskirts of Brussels, contained several Long-tailed Tits (including one white-headed individual), Blue Tits, Great Tits, Marsh Tit, Short-toed Treecreeper, Chaffinch, several Chiffchaff and a single Blackcap.  The flock may well have been migrating as the latter two species are on their way out, whilst my first Redwings of the autumn passed overhead.  Also on their way out, so to speak, are dragonflies with very few remaining now, although a sunny spell did coax out this female Common Darter, as well as a Willow Emerald Damselfly.  Those will probably be the last dragonflies I see until next spring when the cycle starts all over again.