Grinding halt

My big Belgian year has come to a grinding halt since my last post as I have only managed to add one new species.  It was a good one, though, when some targeted research revealed an abandoned fort in the province of Antwerp to be a breeding site for Barn Owl, a species I've only seen twice before in Belgium, and one of those times it was just the briefest of glimpses.  I arrived at the fort entrance before sunset and waited, with the bird finally appearing at the entrance to its daytime roost after about an hour and thus well after dark, before stretching a little and flying silently off over the fort walls.  I also guided a group around my Brussels patch, with everyone getting to see a Kingfisher in flight as well as admiring the two male Red-crested Pochards present.  Other than though, my only birding has been watching Nuthatches or Great Spotted Woodpeckers from my flat/balcony, not that I'm complaining when you can get views like this without leaving home.

BE #235 (Barn Owl)

BRU #116

Win some, lose some

November got off to a great start with Belgium's first-ever Western Swamphen being found in Het Vinne nature reserve on the last day of October.  I successfully twitched it two days later, its rich indigo plumage really popping out of the reedbed on a typically grey November day, although it was too far for me to get any kind of decent photo.  I then had a long day at the coast, which, any other year, I would have considered a good day, observing 66 species in total, including 3 dark-bellied Brent Geese, all three egrets (again), two Water Rail feeding out in the open, and a Siberian Chiffchaff.  In the final stretch of my big Belgian year and under pressure to find an average of at least two new species per week, however, the day felt like it was going to be a failure until I finally managed to locate my target species right at the end of the afternoon when I noticed a group of around 100 Pink-footed Geese resting quietly in a distant field.  Another trip to the Dutch/Belgian border also saw me adding Tundra Bean Goose to my Belgian year list; the birds were perhaps 10 metres inside Belgium although I could only see them by standing in The Netherlands!  After that, though, my luck seems to have run out and this past weekend was especially frustrating thanks to a pesky Phylloscopus.  A Pallas's Warbler had not moved from the same tree at the coast for two days so, on Saturday, I decided to give it a try, but arrived at the station to find engineering works on the line meant the train was replaced by a bus service which would take twice as long.  I turned round and headed home, therefore, only to discover another Pallas's Warbler had been found in Brussels of all places!  I was soon on my way to this one and arrived just five minutes after these photo's were taken, but it was only seen again very briefly by one observer despite several of us searching in the rain for over two hours.

BE #234 (Western Swamphen, Pink-footed Goose, Tundra Bean Goose)

BRU #116