I've added a few more birds to my year list over the past week. First was a Black-winged Stilt twitched at the coast, where I also finally connected with a Sandwich Tern. Yesterday, I headed back to the wonderfully rich area of farmland I discovered last year while twitching a Pallid Harrier and which probably holds the highest breeding density of Corn Buntings in the whole of Belgium. There were still plenty of them singing, their jangling-key song intermixing with that of the numerous Skylarks, plus a few flava wagtails. Much more unexpected, however, was the song of numerous Marsh Warblers emanating from amongst the cabbages and potato plants, which is not a habitat I would associate with this species. It was made all the more bizarre when one of them did a perfect imitation of Sandwich Tern, a species it must come into contact with in its winter quarters along the coast of East Africa, since the call sounded very out of place well inland in deepest Flemish Brabant.
BE #211 (Black-winged Stilt, Sandwich Tern, Corn Bunting)
BRU #110
