Raining Redwings

I headed to the coast today to try my hand at some seawatching.  As soon as I exited Ostend station, however, I noticed small groups of Redwing passing over and, by the time I reached the dunes, I was standing directly in the path of several low-flying flocks with hundreds of them passing all around me.  Within ten minutes, I counted at least 400 Redwings, together with a few Fieldfares and one Mistle Thrush.  Something big was obviously happening and another observer further along the coast counted 2100 in one hour.  Over the sea, things were much quieter, although I did get great looks at some passing Brent Geese, and a winter-plumaged Red-necked Grebe briefly stopped on the sea right in front of me.  Other than that, though, I just had one unidentified diver and a couple of Kittiwakes plus a slow but constant stream of Common Gulls passing by.  The day definitely belonged to the Redwings, therefore, so here again is that lovely picture I took a few years ago and have posted previously.

Back just in time!

It's not just the smell of autumn which is in the air but plenty of migrants too!  Friday morning, I noticed lots of passerines going over my balcony so I sat down and counted them for one hour, totalling almost 200, plus five Cormorant.  The vast majority of the songbirds seemed to be Chaffinches and a few Meadow Pipits but I had a huge surprise when three Parrot Crossbills came past.  There is a major influx of these happening at the moment with unprecented numbers turning up all over The Netherlands and the first few appearing in Belgium.  I thus did another mini migration count on Saturday morning, this time counting 320 migrants in one hour, of which 230 were Chaffinches, with smaller numbers of Brambling, Redpoll, White Wagtail, Skylark, Blackbird, Redwing and Rook.  With all this passing through the centre of Brussels, it felt inevitable that something fantastic would turn up and, sure enough, whilst I was hiking in Germany on Sunday, Belgium's first Long-tailed Shrike fell into the ringers nets at the Zwin.  It was released in front of a lucky few and I was cursing myself for not staying in Belgium but it thankfully stayed overnight, allowing me to to go see it yesterday.  It kept returning to its favourite hunting perch and so the relatively modest crowd, for a national first at least, of around 50 people all got great, prolonged views and, I'm pleased to say, kept their distance.  Getting any kind of photo was a challenge, therefore, but here is a heavily cropped image where you can at least make out the colouration

I never expected to be watching a lifer within a week of getting back from Brazil and what a beauty it was too.  Bring on the autumn!

Cristalino chronicles part 6

I'm back in Brussels again after a horrible 48-hour journey, starting with a nightmare flight from Alta Floresta which ended up being diverted to Goiânia due to a storm preventing us from landing at Cuiaba.  The plane was bouncing around all over the place with people screaming and being sick until the pilot eventually decided to give up on approaching Cuiaba airport after two terrifying attempts.  I must say Azul airlines were exceptional and, instead of flying me all the way back to Cuiaba for the following day's flight to Brasilia, put me on a short flight to Brasilia the same evening so I could have a restful night there before my international connection.
Stephen's law finally kicked on my final afternoon at the lodge, when we got fantastic looks at White-whiskered Spider-Monkey from Tower 1 with me then finding a roosting Short-billed Leaftosser close to the lodge on the way back.  Leaftossers have become extremely rare at Cristalino and this was my first, of any species, since 2014.  On my very last morning at the hotel in Alta Floresta, I finally got a glimpse of my first Cinereous Tinamou.  I had heard this species every year I'd been but never managed to see one and, although this was a typical view of just a body, the head being obscured by vegetation, the size and colouration ruled out any other possibility, plus it started singing shortly after.  That was thus my fifth lifer of the season, taking my total birdlist for the seven weeks to 370 species.  Back in Brussels, the leaves are falling and the smell of autumn is in the air.