Black-winged conquerors

Back in 2017, a very thorough paper appeared in Dutch Birding detailing the extraordinary range expansion of Black-winged Kites in both Israel (from 1 to 150 breeding pairs in less than five years) and France (a threefold increase between 2010 and 2014), accompanied by a strong increase in vagrancy elsewhere, especially in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.  The authors of that paper concluded that we could "expect a further expansion of the breeding population's range...to eastern and northern France" but not even they predicted breeding in Belgium.  Well, the unthinkable has happened and, last week, a pair were found nesting in the Hautes Fagnes!  Above is a habitat shot of the area but, if you look closely, you can just about see a white blob at the top of the two conifers on either side of the photo.  They are nesting at the centre of a nature reserve with no access but the path around the periphery allows for good, albeit distant views, and I got to see them mating, hunting, and taking turns on the nest.  In this heavily cropped image, you can even make out the black wings and mask on one of the birds.

They are known to breed all year, but this is exceptionally late so fingers crossed it doesn't get too cold for them too soon. 
Having got my fill of my 316th species in Belgium, I continued the lovely walk around the nature reserve, seeing my first Great Grey Shrike of the year as well as several Red Kites and two late Swifts, while this pair of Black Darters were also busy ensuring the next generation.

Going dotty

Spot the birdy!

It's that short, end of summer period when Belgium is visited by the likes of Aquatic Warbler, Tawny Pipit and Eurasian Dotterel, all of which are virtually impossible to see at any other time of the year.  The latter species is one of my favourites and it has been five years since I saw my first and only group of birds in Belgium so I couldn't resist giving them another try once I heard of a large group in farmland near Liège, just 6 kilometres from the nearest train station.  As is often the case when looking for Dotterels, I arrived to find what appeared to be an empty field, with no sign of the birds whatsoever.  After about ten minutes, though, I noticed one way off in the distance on the crest of the hill, with more heads coming into view as they came over the crest and starting walking downhill towards me.  

I first counted nine of them, with five birds moving off to the right and the other four coming even closer to my left.  I was relocating towards the group of five when I suddenly heard lots of calling and noticed a large group of 30 forming high in the sky and heading off to the south-west on the next leg of their migration.  Having taken my eyes off them, the five on the ground had disappeared so I headed back to the other four, only to find they had become 18, making a grand total of 48, which is more than I have seen in my lifetime!  There was a nice mix of plumages, including males, females and juveniles, and some came unbelievably close so that even I could get a few decent pictures.

There were a few other migrants around, including several Wheatears, two Whinchats and lots of Yellow Wagtails but the icing on the cake was a hunting, juvenile Hen Harrier on my way back to the train station.

Here comes autumn!

It may not feel like it with this horrible heatwave we are having, but autumn is well and truly on its way.  The Swifts had already vacated the skies above Brussels by the last week of July but, this morning, during an early morning tour of my Brussels patch before it got too hot, I had my first migrant of the autumn in the form of a young Common Redstart.  This species does not breed in Brussels and is a scarce passage migrant, mostly in the autumn.  Another, nice surprise was this day-flying Jersey Tiger moth, which I don't think I've seen in Brussels before.

Doing the Dourbes

Yesterday, I visited Dourbes nature reserve, which was awash with hundreds of Chalkhill Blues.  This has got to my favourite butterfly site in Belgium since it has a great variety of species, and I managed to chalk up a day list of 26 of them, including only my 2nd Scarce Swallowtail in Belgium and my third Purple Hairstreak.  A pair of Honey Buzzards did their best to distract me by floating around right above my head but I only managed one shot since my camera was set up for photographing the blues.

It took me three attempts last year to finally see my first-in-Belgium Weaver's Fritillary here.  There were quite a few of them yesterday but they are one of our smallest fritillaries and never sit still for long, making photographing them quite a challenge.