My year list has finally been advancing in leaps and bounds since I saw the Franklin's Gull, and now stands at a respectable 179 species. Whinchat is usually an autumn bird for me and much harder to see, at least in the places I usually visit, during their spring migration, but this bright male in Limburg was only my 2nd of the month/year, following another in Belgian Luxembourg. I set myself two main targets this year - to reach 250 species in Belgium (my current record is 225) and 150 in Brussels (last year was the first time I kept track of how many species I saw here, totalling 112). For the latter list, I just had to twitch this female Whinchat reported on my Brussels patch yesterday, since they are few and far between in Brussels. Other good additions to both lists this week included a seemingly territorial Hobby in the Forêt de Soignes, in an area they have not been known to breed before, the first Garden Warbler of the year for the Brussels region I discovered on my patch, and three baby Tawny Owls.
