Finch flurry

As you've probably guessed from the lack of posts of late, I've not done much birding this month.  Last week, though, I did a short walk in the Sonian Forest, where there were huge numbers of Chaffinches feeding among the leaf litter, accompanied by a few Bramblings, their northern cousins.  Towards the end of the walk, I also got to watch three Crested Tits, a rather uncommon and localised species within Brussels, one of which even sat still long enough for a photo!  Starting this weekend, my traditional, online advent calendar will be showcasing some of the pictures I took during my seventh season of guiding in the Amazon so you can expect a daily image to brighten up the dreary days of December.

The results are in

As mentioned in October, I've been doing some migration-watching from my balcony this autumn and, now that things have quietened down, I can compile the results.  I started the last week of September and only spent a total of around 15 hours counting between then and the end of October yet tallied some 1512 birds going past.  That's a fairly decent average of 100 birds per hour considering I'm in the built up area of Brussels.  Chaffinches were by far the most numerous, with 621 individuals identified, as well as many more no doubt making up a good proportion of the unidentified birds. 
The total list is as follows;

Chaffinch 621, Starling 257, unidentified passerine 167, Skylark 140, Woodpigeon 96, Meadow Pipit 71, Redwing 38, Siskin 20, Song Thrush 18,
Lapwing 18, White Wagtail 8, Brambling 8, Cormorant 8, Woodlark 6, Linnet 6, Buzzard 4, Black-headed Gull 4, Greenfinch 3, Grey Wagtail 2,
Great Egret 2, Sparrowhawk 2, Blue Tit 2, Swallow 1, Blackbird 1, Stock Dove 1, Herring Gull 1, LesserBlack-backed Gull 1
plus probable Ring Ouzel 3, probable Marsh Harrier 1, probable Mistle Thrush 1, bunting sp. 1

So far this month, all I've managed to do is a quick visit to my Brussels patch where the Red-crested Pochards seemed to be trying out some synchronised swimming!