2020 review

Well, 2020 got off to a promising start but soon ground to a halt as the pandemic spread around the world.
Here, nevertheless, are my best bird sightings of the past twelve months (lifers in CAPS).

January - DUSKY THRUSH (Antwerp province); a beautiful, new species on only the fourth day of the year as I joined the crowds visiting the popular Dusky Thrush near Oud-Turnhout.  I got a very brief glimpse as soon as I arrived but then had to wait another 40 minutes for it to appear again.

February - Red-necked Grebe (Berlin); 3 pairs in breeding plumage making a lot of noise as they displayed on a city lake, the first time I have heard this species calling since I usually only get to see wintering birds.

March - Swallow (Brussels); having been made temporarily unemployed and facing an indefinite period confined to my apartment and the surrounding area, my first Swallow of the year migrating past my balcony on 28th provided a much-needed glimmer of hope.

April - Garganey (Brussels); a pair unexpectedly discovered in a busy city park on my way home from a walk in the forest.

May - Marsh Warbler (Brussels, East Flanders, Luxembourg province); one discovered singing on my Brussels patch, where it is a scarce visitor, towards the end of the month, followed by lots more frantically singing in typical marshy habitat a few days later and another in completely different (much drier) habitat in Belgian Luxembourg.

June - Night Heron (Flemish Brabant); a nice surprise since this usually secretive species was sitting out in the open.

July - Black Stork (De Plateaux - NL); my first Black Stork in the Netherlands circling overhead during the 20 minutes or so I spent just over the border from the Hageven in Belgian Limburg.

August - Black-winged Kite (Hautes-Fagnes); what was almost certainly an immature pair mating, hunting and sitting on a nest on the last day of their weeklong stay. 

September - Curlew Sandpiper (Uitkerkse Polder); my first in several years, I successfully twitched a juvenile at the end of two days spent at the coast.

October - OLIVE-BACKED PIPIT (De Fonteintjes); it took me two attempts but I eventually got good looks at my first, and well overdue, OBP. 

November - DUSKY WARBLER (Bredene); hot on the heels of my first OBP, there would have been something wrong if I didn't connect with my first-ever Dusky Warbler this year considering the unprecedented amount of birds seen at the Belgian coast, and elsewhere, this autumn.

December - Long-tailed Duck (Ostend); Long-tailed Ducks are always nice to see, whatever their plumage, but even more so when they are accompanied by a female Scaup and a female/immature Common Scoter, all of which were new for the year!

No offence to the Olive-backed Pipit, but the dusky duo of thrush and warbler were in contention for my bird of the year, the Dusky Warbler winning the duel as a result of the incredible influx we witnessed this autumn which saw a record nine (at least) different individuals reported on 21 November.  Getting anything more than a brief glimpse of this skulker is already a challenge so I didn't even try to take a picture but a handful of photographers did eventually succeed.  I was just happy to see it so well the first time and then pay another visit to the same bird three weeks later.  It is still there now and looks set to remain there for the rest of the winter so will no doubt be attracting plenty of year-listers, myself included, in a couple of days' time.

So, despite everything, I managed to see three new species this year, with Black-winged Kite and November's Crag Martin also being new additions to my Belgian list, which now stands at 318 species.  The first period of confinement in early spring saw me going through some old trip notebooks and discovering five splits which had passed me by, although I lost two due to a lump and one more as the result of correcting a long-standing misidentification.  The overall result for my lifelist was thus an increase of five species.  During the year, I managed to see (or hear) a total of 214 bird species, 202 of which were in Belgium and 112 in Brussels.  I didn't really get to travel much this year but the additional 12 species came from my short visits to The Netherlands, Berlin and Givet, in northern France.  My apartment list increased by 6 species (Black Redstart, Marsh Harrier, Goldfinch, Merlin, Greylag Goose and White-fronted Goose) and my Brussels patch list by just one - House Sparrow!

Spending most of the spring migration confined to Brussels put paid to a big year for birds, but the travel restrictions within Belgium were lifted just as the butterflies were getting going so I made a serious effort to plug some of the gaps in my Belgian list, adding eleven species as a result, eight of which were lifers, with a record 69 species (67 in Belgium) for the year.

Large Skipper, Luxembourg province, May

With the butterflies keeping me so busy, I had little time for odonata this year although I did manage to identify three new species - Southern Emerald Damselfly, Golden-ringed Dragonfly and the lovely Green-eyed Hooktail, which I saw twice.  Finally, I also saw one new species of orchid this year during a butterfly trip to the Fagnes.

Dactylorhiza sphagnicola, Fagne de Malchamps (Liège province), June

I would like to wish you all a nature-filled and healthy 2021!

Photo's of the year

As an added bonus for Xmas, I thought I'd showcase a few of my favourite pictures taken by a few friends and which deserve to reach a bigger audience.

A Glaucous-winged Gull demonstrates the correct way to eat an Ochre Sea Star by Rich Hoyer

I'm still receiving regular butterfly photo's from the guides at Cristalino Lodge in the Brazilian Amazon for me to identify;

Emesis cerea by Sidnei Dantas

And finally, Simon Rix's excellent blog always features some truly magnificent photographs of some much sought-after species but I especially liked this artistically framed shot.

Northern Hawk-Owl by Simon Rix

2020 advent Day 24

And finally, doing all my birding and butterflying by public transport means I spend a lot of time at train stations.  I've already written about the fantastic autumn birding to be had at Heist station but these two, very recently fledged Black Redstarts hopping clumsily around Mariembourg station stole my heart.

Black Redstarts, Mariembourg station (Namur province), June

2020 advent Day 23

2020 was the year of the Queen of Spain Fritillary for me.  I finally added it to my Belgian list in June, only to then find more of them in the coastal dunes of Holland just over a week later, followed by additional sightings at another two Belgian reserves in July and August. 

Queen of Spain Fritillary, Dourbes (Namur province), August

2020 advent Day 22

My post about my visit to the Pointe de Givet nature reserve just over the border in France was dominated by pictures of High Brown Fritillary since it was a new species for me but this picture shows that, with lots of patience and a little bit of luck, even the less colourful skippers can make a great photo.  

Mallow Skipper, Givet (FR), July

2020 advent Day 21

More youngsters today, this time a group of Swallows getting ready for their first migration.

Barn Swallows, Het Zwin (West Flanders province), July

2020 advent Day 20

Little Grebes seem to have had a great breeding season this year as I kept seeing youngsters wherever I went in late July/early August.

Little Grebes, Brussels, July

2020 advent Day 19

I only saw my first Keeled Skimmer last year, so I was pleased to find and identify another one, this time an immature male.

Keeled Skimmer, Olloy-sur-Viroin (Namur province), June

2020 advent Day 18

Sooty Copper is a lovely little butterfly and has already appeared on my blog this year but only the underside, so here is a nice shot with its wings open.

Sooty Copper (male), Rulles (Luxembourg province), July

2020 advent Day 17

My local park has the tiniest of ponds which would not normally attract any waterbirds but this heron somehow discovered it was full of frog spawn this spring and and was there regularly for its breakfast whenever I visited early in the morning, before the park got too busy.

Grey Heron, Brussels, April

2020 advent Day 16

Shaggy Inkcap (Coprinus comatus), Ghent, November

2020 advent Day 15

Red Admiral, Brussels, October

Another late appearance, this time by a Red Admiral sunning itself on my balcony on 17 October.  Above is a typical pose whereas I don't often get to see the underwing so the one below took me some time to work out what it was!

Red Admiral, Oud-Heverlee (Flemish Brabant province), June

2020 advent Day 14

While looking for late-autumn migrants at the coast, I came across this extremely late Garden Warbler sunning itself on 3 November!  Garden Warbler was my immediate reaction and the identification would normally be straightforward but, it being so late in the year, when any self-respecting Garden Warbler should be south of the Sahara, a comment by another birder got me wondering if it might be something else instead.

Garden Warbler, Heist (West Flanders province), November

2020 advent Day 13

Last year's online advent calendar focussed on Belgian odonata, including Northern White-faced Darter and Yellow-spotted Whiteface.  I didn't, however, include the commonest of our three, regularly occurring Leucorrhinia species, the White-faced Darter (this is a female).

White-faced Darter, Fagne de Malchamps (Liège province), June

2020 advent Day 12

Mazarine Blue, Plate Dessous les Monts (Luxembourg province), June

2020 advent Day 11

I've already posted two pictures of the high-tide roost of Turnstones in Ostend harbour but I just couldn't resist including a third one here.

Turnstones, Ostend, October

2020 advent Day 10

Spotted Longhorn (Rutpela maculata), near Libin (Luxembourg province), June

2020 advent Day 9

I've already blogged how to tell Lesser Marbled Fritillary from Marbled Fritillary and I saw plenty of the former species this year.

Lesser Marbled Fritillary, Plate Dessous les Monts (Luxembourg province), June

2020 advent Day 8

At least once a year, I make a 16-km hike in the Ardennes to try and see Nutcracker.  I just about succeeded, with a distant view of a single bird in flight, but was surprised to discover this wonderful sculpture made out of the stump of a pine tree.

Owl-sculpture (artist unknown), Ardennes, September

Out with a bang

Since I decided to try for 200 species in Belgium this year, I've added Bittern, the Crag Martin, plus a group of 21 Bewick's Swan twitched in the province of Antwerp last week, thus taking me to 198.  This past weekend, however, provided a final flurry with another four new birds for the year, three of which were in the same field of view on the Spuikom in Ostend!  Here, the wintering group of at least 31 Goldeneye were loosely accompanied by an immature male Long-tailed Duck, a female Scaup and a female/immature Common Scoter.

Long-tailed Duck (centre left) and female Scaup (centre right)

Common Scoter

I then paid a second visit to Bruno, the name affectionately given to the Dusky Warbler in Bredene, on day 23 of its extended stay.  It was calling as soon as I arrived and I eventually got to see it three times, although always very briefly, as it never stopped in the same place for more than a few seconds.  This picture by another observer is fairly typical of the views I was getting but it was still nice to see it again, being the only Dusky Warbler I have ever seen.  Already very pleased with this, I had a brief look around Ostend harbour before catching the train home and this gull stood out to me as having a very white head.  After lots of deliberation and help from various people, I'm fairly happy this is a second-winter Yellow-legged Gull, another year tick and my 202nd species in Belgium this year.

UPDATE 9 December - Belgium's top identification expert has commented on my gull and it seems it is just a Herring Gull after all!  Apparently, the pattern on the tertials is wrong for a Yellow-legged, plus the mantle should be a darker, bluish-grey.  This is why I don't usually bother trying to id immature gulls!

2020 advent Day 7

My last online advent calendar featured Belgian odonata but I was unable to include this species since I didn't have a decent picture of it at the time, something I was eager to remedy as soon as they emerged this year.

Broad Scarlet, Brussels, June

2020 advent Day 6

This Large Wall Brown butterfly has already featured on my blog since it was my first in Belgium but I particularly liked this additional shot of it feeding.

Large Wall Brown, Couvin (Namur province), June

2020 advent Day 5

One of the few trips I made outside of Belgium this year was a visit to Amsterdam to try (and fail) to see a long-staying Blyth's Reed Warbler in a city park.

Mallard, Amsterdam (NL), June

2020 advent Day 4

Orchids of any kind are always exciting to see but I had never found one in Brussels, where they are extremely rare, until I visited a local park looking for dragonflies and discovered this beauty in full bloom.

Common Spotted Orchid, Brussels, June

2020 advent Day 3

As soon as the travel restriction was lifted, however, I started making various trips elsewhere, seeing a lot of butterflies as a result.

Green Hairstreak, Terretelle (Luxembourg province), May

2020 advent Day 2

Early spring was pretty tough this year, with the local confinement measures meaning I was restricted to birding from my balcony or in my local park, which gave me an added appreciation for the commoner species I don't usually pay much attention to.

 (Eurasian) Wren, Brussels, April

2020 advent Day 1

It's time for yet another of my online advent calendars, originally started with the idea of showcasing some of my pictures from my summers in the Amazon.  Since I've hardly been out of Belgium this year, I'll be featuring some photo's taken during my various wanderings around the country which haven't already appeared on my blog, starting with something completely different!

Pied Hover-Fly, Brussels, July

Record shot?

Record shot is the term we generally use for a terrible photo of a rare bird, just to prove you really did see it, whereas I doubt the above even qualifies as that.  This pale brown blob sitting on the windowledge of a Ghent hospital is my first Crag Martin in Belgium which I succesfully twitched yesterday. This is a very rare bird in Belgium with only four accepted records until this year, and at least another four this autumn as part of an influx which also brought several Pallid Swifts to north-western Europe.  It was actually flying when I arrived but immediately landed and didn't move from this spot for the next hour, although I could see it was actively on the lookout for insects.  Hopefully, its lethargy was more due to the cold, overcast conditions rather than its physical condition.  Typically, just three minutes after the standing around in the cold waiting for it to do something got the better of me and I moved on, it decided to fly again!

The final countdown

My Dusky Warbler twitch to the coast took my Belgian year list to 195 species, which is nowhere near my all-time record of 225 but not too bad considering I spent most of the spring migration stuck in Brussels.  I thus decided to have a go at reaching 200 by the end of the year.  There was, incidentally, a veritable deluge of Dusky Warblers along the Belgian coast this past weekend, with at least nine, possibly 11, different individuals observed on Saturday which is more than we usually get in an entire year.  As I'd seen my one so well, I resisted the temptation to go back for more and instead went to the best site I know for Great Bittern.  Within ten minutes of arriving at the hide, one flew right past and disappeared into the reedbed.  One down, four to go!  I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of it in flight but I did finally succeed in getting one of a Long-tailed Tit, a challenge I set myself back in February of last year and eventually gave up on after about a month of trying.

Dusky double

Lifers are just like buses!  After having to wait over nine months between my first and second of the year, a third comes along just three weeks later.  This time it was a Dusky Warbler, which was found in Bredene on Friday and I succesfully twitched over the weekend.  As is often the case with birds I see for the very first time, I concentrated on getting a good look at it rather than fumbling with my camera and ending up not even seeing it well.  I was very lucky, too, as I got a great view of it sitting out in the open in a patch of reeds whereas most people had to be content with brief glimpses or only hearing it call, which it was doing constantly.  There was also this nice, frosty-looking Siberian Chiffchaff, in the same park.  I then moved to the polders for the afternoon and waited until it got dark so I could see the Short-eared Owls hunting, one of which had a brief tussle with a hunting, immature Hen Harrier which had intruded into its airspace.  A Barn Owl glimpsed very briefly in the dark and then heard calling on the way back was my 62nd species of the day.

V is for Vielsalm

Crane migration really got underway last week, with a phenomenal 11,399 being counted along the German border in just a few hours on Thursday evening.  I thus decided yesterday was a good day to go down to the Ardennes in the hope of intercepting some.  Vielsalm station is nestled in a steep-sided river valley which dominates the landscape for miles around and acts as a funnel for migrating birds, so I thought that was my best bet and I wasn't wrong!  I already spotted 12 low-flying Cranes from the train as we were pulling into the station and, an hour later, I had counted 1,884 of them, with several of the groups passing directly overhead.

I still hadn't moved more than 100m from the train station, though, so I eventually pulled myself away and went for a walk in the surrounding forest, with a few more, large groups of high-flying cranes taking my day's tally to 2262.

A single Red Kite also joined in the migration and it was strange to see groups of Woodpigeons accompanying the cranes, whilst a group of migrating Fieldfares were doing their own thing.  The forest was rather quiet although I did locate a group of around 30 Common Crossbills, some of which were singing, which I don't get to hear very often.

OBP!

Olive-backed Pipit by Alain Boeckx

October has turned out to be the month of the three-letter birds.  After my wonderful YBW discovery at the start of the month, an Olive-backed Pipit decided to spend 11 days in a nature reserve at the coast.  This is a scarce but regular autumn migrant in Belgium with 20 accepted records until the end of 2019.  They do not usually stay for long, however, so I have never been able to see one.  I first tried after work with just one hour of daylight remaining on day four of its stay but couldn't locate it, a first-winter male Ring Ouzel being my only consolation.  Two days later, I returned to find a cluster of birders staring at a bush and, after around ten minutes, got my first, frustrating view of its back as it crept mouse-like through the vegetation.  I soon got a good view of its head, though, which was much creamier than I expected and very different from our regular Tree Pipits, with the bird eventually popping out of the long grass into full view.  Just at that moment, some other birders who were positioned further along the path came rushing along to get a better view and flushed it so I wasn't able to get any pictures.  Another Brussels birder kindly let me use his instead.  Merci, Alain! 
Olive-backed Pipit is only my second lifer this year and it has been a long, long wait since the Dusky Thrush way back in January.

Olive-backed Pipit by Alain Boeckx

Olive-backed Pipit by Alain Boeckx

Migration madness

It's been a mad, mad week of migration here in Brussels (and elsewhere)!  So far this autumn, there has been very little sign of migration from my balcony but things started to happen on Monday, with small numbers of various species passing, including at least 21 Fieldfare, 2 Redwing, 2 Song Thrush, 4 late Swallows, several Skylark, Linnet and the first Merlin for my flat list.  Heading home from work at 11pm, I could still hear Redwings and Song Thrushes passing over the centre of Brussels so it was clear something big was happening.  By Tuesday morning, the floodgates had well and truly opened as I went out onto my balcony to the sight of groups of birds all over the sky.  It was chaos and I didn't know where to look, let alone attempt some kind of count, but I reckon I probably saw around 1000 Redwings and at least 100 Song Thrushes, together with smaller numbers of Blackbird, Fieldfare and Skylark.  A Peregrine joined in the fun, as did a big formation of 38 Cormorants, and I simply lost a migrating Sparrowhawk amongst the clouds of Redwings passing through my field of view!  A quick tour of my local park just ahead of some light drizzle had Redwings literally dropping out of the sky.  I hadn't seen such concentrated migration of one species since the Skylarks of October 2016, and trektellen.nl confirmed my suspicions as migration counts all over the Benelux had smashed their day records for Redwing, with 2480 counted elsewhere in Brussels and a couple of Belgian sites reporting over 20,000 of them.  Flamborough Head in the UK had over 32,000 of them arrive in what the observer described as one of the biggest Redwing movements recorded in recent times and the most impressive thing he'd seen in over 30 years of migration counting, while the well-manned site just outside The Hague somehow managed to count 255,676 Rewings going past!  By Wednesday morning, it was all over, with only 61 Redwing and very little else passing over during half an hour spent on my balcony, although a group of 5 Greylag Goose were also new for my flat list.  With all this madness going on, I just had to get to the coast and thus spent a few hours in Zeebrugge on Thursday morning before work.  There had been an obvious, overnight fall of Goldcrests, plus several Firecrests, and the aftermath of Tuesday's thrush tsunami was still evident, with groups of Redwings feeding everywhere, accompanied by one Fieldfare and this stonking Ring Ouzel.

I also found a Lesser Whitethroat, which, so late in the year, is more likely to be of the Siberian subspecies blythi, although they cannot reliably be separated from the nominate race in the field.  By Friday, things seemed to have settled down but a morning tour of my local park had me stumped as I twice heard an unusual call I didn't recognise before the unseen, calling bird seemed to move off into the walled garden of the Indian embassy.  I didn't have a clue what it was but knew I had never heard this call before so I spent most of the evening listening to various calls until I found the perfect match - a Greenish Warbler!!!  OMG, what a find that would have been but, of course, there was no trace of it this morning, although I did get home just in time to first hear and then see a group of 30+ White-fronted Geese pass over my balcony!

Feeding frenzy

My YBW/PGS/Blako ended up staying for four days, finally disappearing during the night of 7-8 October just as it did last year!  I spent some time with it every day, helping several other birders to connect with both it and the Pied Flycatcher, but I also managed a trip to the coast to look for other rarities.  I got to see the Red-breasted Flycatcher again in Zeebrugge, where there was a small fall of Song Thrushes plus my first Redwing of the winter, but failed to find the Pallas' Grasshopper Warbler, Barred Warbler and Grey Phalaropes which had been reported.  I finished up in Ostend, where the recent storms had washed up all sorts of tasty morsels onto the beach, resulting in a feeding frenzy of several hundred Herring Gulls plus a nice collection of waders.  I counted at least 6 Dunlin, 2 Sanderling, 2 Knot and 1 Bar-tailed Godwit (showing its barred tail for a change), in addition to the always photogenic and extremely confiding high tide roost of Turnstones.