It's been five years since I last saw a Velvet Scoter, which is a very scarce winter visitor to Belgium, so Xmas Day saw me taking the train to an appropriately-named station in East Flanders to twitch two of them on a nearby lake.
They were easy to find, with a distant Red-necked Grebe as an added bonus, plus a male Black Redstart at Ghent station as a nice, unseasonal Xmas present. Since I'm working the rest of the week and won't have time for any more twitches, the curtain thus draws on my big Belgian year with 240 species under my belt. I had hoped for 250 but some terrible weather combined with a stubborn cold during my time off earlier this month put paid to that!
BE #240 (Velvet Scoter)
BRU #116
