Plodding along

My 2020 year list is plodding along nicely, the latest addition (#95) being a Lesser Black-backed Gull in Hyde Park during a quick day trip to London. 
Last week, I made my first trip of the year to the coast to add some of the species we don't get in Brussels.  There were lots of White-fronted and Barnacle Geese around but a large flock of at least 140 Pink-footed Geese was a nice surprise as it's been several years since I saw any at all in Belgium.  With the milder winters, it seems most Pink-feet now stay in Denmark and don't bother coming this far south so we no longer get the big numbers we used to.  Another surprise was a lone, male Red-breasted Merganser in Ostend since this is a very scarce bird in Belgium and one I would normally have to twitch to add to my year list.  A male Stonechat was more or less expected, however, since a few usually overwinter along the coast.
In my local park, there are now three species of parakeet - the ubiquitous and noisy Ring-necks, as many as 18 of the much more discrete Alexandrine Parakeets feeding on a fruiting tree alongside Redwings, Song Thrush and lots of Blackbirds, plus a couple of Monk Parakeets which seem to be refurbishing an old Magpie nest.  There can't be many other places in Europe where you can see three different parakeets at once!

2019 review

I had been meaning to post this earlier but 2020 has already provided plenty of distractions, what with my lifer Dusky Thrush, helping discover a new species of butterfly and, this weekend, twitching the 9th Little Curlew for the Western Palearctic amongst its Curlew friends in North Holland.
Here, though, is my traditional look back over the year just gone, the monthly highlights of which were as follow (lifers in CAPS);

January - Kingfisher (Brussels); seen well on 1st and at least three more times during the month, including one catching a fish at my Brussels patch.
February - Goshawk (Brussels); another scare, local species seen three times duing the month, with perhaps as many as five vocalising during a forest walk late in the month.
This was also the month I set myself the challenge of trying to photograph a hyperactive Long-tailed Tit but I failed miserably, this being the best I could do.

March - Goosander (Brussels); a new species for my patch list, it was first reported as a female but later reidentified as a 2cy male and lingered in Brussels until the end of August.
April - Red Kite (Brussels); I spotted my first one in Brussels from my apartment as it migrated north.
May - Redshank (Brussels); another new species for my patch list, I was very lucky to be there just as this migrating individual dropped in to check out the ponds before continuing its migration less than a minute later.
June - Tufted Duck (Brussels); although common in winter, only a few Tufted Ducks remain over the summer and finding a female with 7 ducklings was the first time I've been able to confirm breeding within Brussels.
July - Common Crossbill (Kalmthout Heath); the song had me first thinking they were Woodlarks until I managed to locate a displaying Crossbill during a guiding trip.
August - STILT SANDPIPER (NL); my first lifer of the year, twitched by bike from Amsterdam.
September - Merlin (Uitkerkse Polder, NL); a species I usually struggle to add to my year list, the first observation was a typically brief fly-by, while the second, also a migrant, was seen quite well.
October - Yellow-browed Warbler (Brussels); an unexpected discovery on my way to the supermarket!
November - BASALT WHEATEAR (Israel); although not strictly a lifer since it is currently considered a subspecies of Mourning Wheatear, this was another good and unexpected discovery which was subsequently twitched by several Israeli birders, some of whom got great pictures.
December - PINE GROSBEAK (Oslo); eighteen of one of my most wanted European species seen at point-blank range as a result of this year's exceptional invasion into southern Scandinavia.

This was not a great birding year for me since, as you can probably tell from the above locations, almost all of my birding until May was within Brussels.  After that, a new job with virtually no holidays meant the only trips I could do were a weekend in Dublin, five days in Israel and the short twitch to Oslo.  Still, the focus on local birding did provide an additional three species (Cetti's Warbler, Goosander and Redshank) for my Brussels patch list, which now stands at 108 species!  My Belgian year list reached 168 species, 110 of which were in Brussels.  Dutch excursions, a day at Rutland Water, and the Dublin and Oslo trips took my European year list to 202, with my short break in Israel making a total year list of 241 species.  Although Stilt Sandpiper, Black Scrub-Robin and Pine Grosbeak were three great additions to my life-list, they were all more or less expected since they were twitches (or in the case of Black Scrub-Robin, targeted searching).  The bird of the year award, therefore, has to go to the Yellow-browed Warbler, since it was my most unexpected and exciting discovery of the year, and right on my doorstep too!

My butterfly year was also pretty quiet since I only added Weaver's Fritillary to my Belgian list, although I did identify four new species in Israel.  I had better luck with the odonata, though, seeing my first Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly, Common Clubtail and Keeled Skimmer during the year.

The magic continues

Lycaenidae sp.nova by Sidnei Dantas

As most of you already know, Cristalino Jungle Lodge in northern Mato Grosso at the southern edge of the Amazonian rainforest is one of my favourite places in the world, having spent almost two years of my life guiding there.  Work commitments mean that I've not been back since 2018 but I stay in touch via a group chat with the lodge's guides, who regularly send me pictures of butterflies to identify.  Most of the photographs are either of common species or terribly difficult genera which are virtually impossible to identify to species level.  On New Year's Eve, however, I received the above picture, with a comment by the local butterfly biologist which read "Interesting, maybe Stephen knows".  Normally, I would at least have a clue of the genus but this one had me confused as it showed diagnostic features of both Calycopis and Strephonota but didn't seem to fit either and, after several hours of searching the Internet, I hadn't been able to come up with anything remotely like it.  I thus forwarded it to a few international experts, all of whom seem to agree it is a new, undescribed species!  The Cristalino reserve is the most well-studied area in the whole of the southern (if not the entire) Amazon yet the fact that new species are still being discovered there by casual observers simply taking photographs around the lodge is phenomenal and really goes to show just how much we still have to learn about the Amazon rainforest and its incredible biodiversity.

Where's wally?

The Wallcreeper which was found five years ago is back!  Or at least it was.  I went today to try and see it but it was not to be found, and indeed hasn't been observed since yesterday lunchtime, with a rather ominous Peregrine sitting atop its rock instead.  Still, a Dipper and three adult Caspian Gulls along the Meuse were nice consolation year ticks, as was a male Firecrest I found feeding in my local park this morning.  The Wallcreeper was only my second twitch of the weekend, however, since an adult male Dusky Thrush was found in north-eastern Belgium late on New Year's Day!  It has received hundred of admirers since and, yesterday, I joined the crowds to get my first lifer of the year and 315th species in Belgium.  It stayed around 100m away in a fenced enclosure so there was no question of me getting any picture of it but the professionals with the huge lenses did manage a decent shot or two.  What a gorgeous thrush; the yellowish wash to the face and throat contrasting with the white belly was something I wasn't expecting since it's not shown well in any of my field guides.  Who would have thought I'd be starting off 2020, the year of the Bullfinch as chosen by Vogelbescherming Vlaanderen, the Flemish bird-protection association, with a lifer?

Pygmy New Year

Despite working this morning, I was able to get a few hours of birding in this afternoon to kick start my new year list, starting with our Pygmy Cormorant, which is still in Brussels, having been discovered when it was a 1st-winter two years ago.  I then did a brief tour of my Brussels patch, adding our other rarities of Ferruginous Duck and Red-crested Pochard as well as getting great looks at a fishing Kingfisher, just like I did on 1st January last year.  This Coal Tit is now regularly coming to the handouts provided by the photographers although the confiding Middle Spotted Woodpecker at the same spot seems to have succumbed since it has not been seen for quite a while.  A Peregrine perched on its nestsite in the south of Brussels which I spotted from the tram took my afternoon's and 2020 list to 46 species already!  Happy and birdy/butterfly-y (or even dragonfly-y) New Year to you all!