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.
