The perfect twitch

I'm having some very good twitching luck of late.  After last week's lifer Stilt Sandpiper, I managed to photograph my lifer Keeled Skimmer (Orthetrum coerulescens) earlier this week.  This is a very scarce dragonfly in Brussels since we are right at the limit of its range.

Today, I tried twitching a juvenile Little Crake at a small nature reserve I'd never been to, less than an hour from Brussels and a short walk from the nearest train station.  I arrived, the other birders present said "There it is", and I was watching the crake before I could even set up my telescope!  It stayed out in the open water long enough for me set up my scope and see it really well, before it disappeared back into the reedbeds, after which it only appeared intermittently and much further away for the rest of the morning.  If only all twitches were so easy!  Little Crake is a new bird for my European list since I'd only seen them in Israel before, and there were actually two juveniles present so they probably bred at the reserve.  Strangely enough and in a repeat performance of the Black Hairstreak coincidence, I looked at my notes and discovered my first-ever Little Crake was EXACTLY 19 years ago, on 31 August 2000 at Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin!  There were masses of Swallowtail butterflies flying around and lots of Cetti's Warblers singing, so I was really pleased to discover a nice, new location close to Brussels I'd probably never have visited had the Little Crake(s) not been found there.

450 bis

The last new species I added to my lifelist was the Paddyfield Warbler I twitched in Zeebrugge way back in October of last year.  At the time, it was my 450th species in Europe but I have since lost one and fallen back to 449 as the two seemingly wild Snow Geese I have seen in Europe were both deemed to be escapes.  On Tuesday, though, I decided to give the Stilt Sandpiper near Amsterdam a try.  This was a lifer and had already been present for six days so I took the train to Amsterdam and hired a bike.  Almost two hours later, I finally arrived at the reserve and immediately recognised the distant bird thanks to its distinctive silhouette, with its comical-looking, drooping bill.  I got some nice scope looks at the bird, which was at an advanced stage of moult from summer to winter plumage, but it remained too far for pictures.  There were quite a few other waders present, including Green Sandpiper, Greenshank and several Wood Sandpipers, as well as this adult Spoonbill being relentlessly harassed by its constantly begging offspring.

Tuesday was the seventh and last day of the Stilt Sandpiper's stay as it has not been seen since.  I was very pleased, therefore, that I decided not to wait until the weekend, even if I could no longer feel my legs after the 50km or so of cycling; the first time I'd ridden a bike in four years!

The Roseate Isle

I spent last weekend birding around Dublin with the main aim of removing the question mark next to my one and only observation of Roseate Tern.  That was back in 2007 on the beach of Zeebrugge but, being the only observer to have seen the bird and having since seen several other Commic Terns that looked similar, I was no longer sure of my original identification.  My local contact met me from the airport bus and we were soon birding the suburbs of Dublin, where we found the local, hibernicus race of Dipper.  We then headed to an islet along the coast where a few Roseate Terns breed but it was already deserted, with just a few Shags loafing around and a distant Manx Shearwater out to sea.  After a visit to Booterstown nature reserve, we made our way to Sandymount Strand for the tern roost.  Until then, I had been hearing the occasional Spotted Redshank call but, strangely, not seeing any.  My guide then pointed out the same calls coming from the rapidly growing flock of terns and I realised I had been hearing Roseates, their calls easily picked out from the din of the 3000 or so other terns present.  Seeing them was another matter entirely but we eventually saw 4 or 5 birds we were both convinced had to be Roseates before a young Peregrine ploughed right through the flock, almost succeeding in picking off a tern and creating total panic as the the flock scattered in all directions.

Just a few of the 3000-4000 terns at Sandymount Strand

The following day and half were spent visiting a few other sites around Dublin and adding some more species to the list, which came to 78 species in 2.5 days, one of the last sightings we made being this ever so young deer we stumbled across in Phoenix Park.  Many thanks to Joao for all your help; I'll be back when the Roseates are in breeding plumage, if not before!