Holland horror show

I was in Holland last weekend but, apart from a nice selection of shorebirds, including my first Little Stints of the year, there was little sign of migration.  We did briefly get to see a migrant Merlin, however, and enjoyed great views of an immature Goshawk trying to catch a pigeon without success.  In fact, the most successful predator we saw was a Great Black-backed Gull which had somehow caught a Great Crested Grebe and was dragging the struggling bird up onto the mudflats.  Despite managing to break free a few times, the grebe was just too far from water to reach safety and was eventually ripped open for the gull to feast itself on the fresh fish meal contained inside. 

Migrant moments

Nothing is more typical of the month of September for me than this Migrant Hawker dragonfly.  Although I saw my first of the year in early July, their numbers really peak between late August and early September and they can now be found pretty much everywhere.  Last week, I guided a couple of visiting birders at the coast, with a migrant group of 20 Spoonbill passing overhead almost as soon as we stepped out of the tram!  There were a few other migrants around, including several Wheatear, two Hobbies and an immature Cuckoo, with several Marsh Harriers showing well as they quartered the reedbeds.  The following morning, I took another visitor to my Brussels patch, where we managed to connect with no less than 40 species, including Kingfisher, Crested Tit, and an eclipse male Red-crested Pochard.  As we were watching several Chiffchaffs busily feeding, we glimpsed another bird amongst them sitting unusually upright, with subsequent views allowing us to clinch the id as a migrant, 1st-year Spotted Flycatcher, a species I'd only seen there once before.  Vive la migration!