Belgium got off lightly last weekend with just a couple of centimetres of snow in Brussels, while ten times that amount fell in The Netherlands and large parts of Germany. Temperatures, though, have plummeted with daytime maxima just below freezing and nights down to minus 13°C! It was minus 9°C when I wrapped up warm and headed out to my Brussels patch this morning. One of the first birds I saw was a Kingfisher along the still flowing stream, and most of the ducks plus no less than 11 Little Grebes were concentrated on the small area of open water where it enters one of the ponds, the rest of which have frozen over completely.
There were lots of Redwings around, many of them feeding on ivy berries whereas this individual had discovered some apple at the feeding station. A group of at least twenty Siskins were also nice to watch but their acrobatic feeding technique made them ever so difficult to photograph.
Working my way around the main pond, I noticed the areas with plenty of overhanging branches also had a few, small patches of open water, which were crowded with our resident female Ferruginous Duck, a Great Crested Grebe and this American couple getting lovey-dovey ready for Valentine's Day.
After 4 hours I had recorded 49 species but by far the biggest surprise was a medium-sized bat fluttering around at midday and drinking from the open water. I can only assume it had been disturbed from wherever it was hibernating since it is unlikely to find any food now.
