I was back in the polders yesterday, guiding for an English couple visiting Belgium. We started with 6 Purple Sandpiper feeding alongside Blankenberge pier and the very last birds of the day were a flock of around 120 Pink-footed Geese. In the meantime, we also managed to find 2 Firecrest, 2 Dunlin, 3 Snipe, 2 different Hen Harriers, a Marsh Harrier and 3 Long-eared Owls, with a day total of 63 species. Although we saw Pink-footed, White-fronted, Barnacle and Greylag Geese, the numbers of geese in the polders were not huge, no doubt due to the very mild weather. The thousands of Lapwings, on the other hand, were putting on a magnificent show, with large groups constantly flying around. At one point, we even had a two-tier flock made up of Lapwings and around 400 Golden Plovers above them.
