Yesterday, I guided a group around my old patch of Mechels Broek, near Mechelen, and, recognising their distinctive screaming calls, spotted a migrating flock of 30 Swifts high in the sky. It was a beautiful morning, with a singing Nightingale a couple of people managed to see briefly, a pair of perched Kingfishers and lots of recently-arrived Whitethroats entertaning us with their display-flights.
Having enjoyed a Kestrel divebombing a Buzzard, with several White Storks circling around, I was looking at another Buzzard when a second, much higher raptor flew into my field of view. As it circled, I got to see the distinctive white-black underwing pattern of a stork, and really had to look hard to make sure there wasn't a long neck and beak attached but no, it had a very small head which hardly protruded from the body. It was only then I realised we were looking at a Booted Eagle, my first in Belgium, just before it glided off high to the south-east.
Not yesterday's bird, this was taken in Israel.
