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.
