Back to the birds

I've been digressing quite a lot lately, with butterflies, orchids, dragonflies and even the owlfly of my last post.  Last weekend, however, news broke of a Greenish Warbler, a potential lifer, singing near the German border so I've had a tense week hoping it would stay.  Greenish Warblers overshoot most springs but very rarely stay for more than a couple of days and are usually in hopelessly inaccessible places.  After lots of juggling with bus and train timetables, I eventually found a bus stop only 5km's walk from the bird, which was still singing Friday, and so, yesterday being my first free day since it was found, I gave it a try.  Once there, it didn't take long to hear it sing twice from the other side of the river but then it shut up completely for the next half hour.  This scenario repeated itself several times over the next two hours with the bird giving just one brief burst of song and then remaining slient, making itself impossible to locate.  Four other birders were there with me and no-one managed to see it at all so Greenish Warbler now joins Corncrake, Dupont's Lark and Great Snipe on my unwanted list of heard-only species.  Very frustrating, therefore, although the long wait was livened up by three passing Black Storks, a male Goshawk and a Raven.  On the way there, I found a pair of Whinchat, a scarce breeding bird in Belgium and probably the first time I've seen them on their breeding grounds.  There were also lots of Violet Coppers and Bog Fritillaries flying around, which I pretty much ignored in my hurry to get to the warbler, but had time to photograph after I'd given up.  I particularly like this one where my butterfly portrait was photobombed by a hoverfly!