2024 advent Day 21

Not a great shot since I had to take it through a window, but these Anna's Hummingbird babies had the decency to wait until the day after I arrived before leaving their nest in my friends' garden.  Piedmont CA, April.

2024 advent Day 20

Weaver's Fritillary was also common on the grassy slopes above the town, my one long hike taking me as high as 1680m.

2024 advent Day 19

I was unable to get to Modane this year but managed a short break in Bourg-St-Maurice at the start of September instead, where I saw lots of Damon Blue.

2024 advent Day 18

Pearly Heath, Han-sur-Lesse, July

2024 advent Day 17

Broad-bodied Chaser, Viroinval, June

2024 advent Day 16

Purple-edged Copper (female), Hautes Fagnes, July

2024 advent Day 15

Mazarine Blue (female), Hautes Fagnes, July

2024 advent Day 14

Audouin's Gull, Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 13

Queen of Spain Fritillary, Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 12

Southern Skimmer (Orthetrum brunneum), Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 11

Bath White, Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 10

Cirl Bunting, Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 9

Corsican Wall Brown, Corsica, June

2024 advent Day 8

Common Spreadwing (Lestes sponsa), Kalmthoutse Heide, July

2024 advent Day 7

Chipping Sparrow, New York, April

2024 advent Day 6

Rose-breasted Grosbeak, New York, April

2024 advent Day 5

Propertius Duskywing, Eugene OR, April

2024 advent Day 4

Western Green Lizard, Forêt de Fontainebleau, July

2024 advent Day 3

Western Bluebird, Oakland CA, April

2024 advent Day 2

White-throated Sparrow, New York, April

2024 advent Day 1

For this year's advent calendar, I decided to choose a selection of photo's I took during the year and which never made it my blog, starting back in January with these Common Goldeneye on Rutland Water.

Where's Widgy?

Earlier this week, I twitched this immature male Wigeon which has turned up in a Brussels park.  He was hanging out with the Gadwalls and following their lead by munching pondweed, which in itself is quite unusual since I've only ever seen Wigeon feeding on grass before.  This is only the second time I've seen Wigeon in Brussels, the last being a group of three way back in November 2010!

Pretty in pink

Way back in 1998, during my birding Europe by train adventure, I found a juvenile Rose-coloured Starling in Bialowieza.  Whilst a new species for me, a sandy-coloured Starling with a yellow beak is not exactly the same a pink adult and this single sighting has been a bit of a blemish on my lifelist ever since.  Fast forward 26 years and my successful mockingbird twitch of last weekend encouraged me to attempt my second international twitch in less than a week by going for the adult Rose-coloured Starling which has been frequenting a garden on Texel since 7 October.  Within 5 hours of leaving Brussels, I was on the island and headed straight for the garden.  There were plenty of Common Starlings around and two other birders told me it had flown off just before I arrived (typical!), so I started to wait.  There was no sign of it, though, so I started exploring the surrounding area, returning regularly to its regular spot to make sure I wasn't missing out.  After 1.5 hours, I returned to find it sitting on a rooftop and just managed to get a single photo before it disappeared again.

I'd finally seen a pink, Rose-coloured Starling but it was frustratingly brief so I went to my hotel and decided to return again later in the afternoon, when, going by previous sightings, it seemed to be a bit more reliable.  Sure enough, when I returned at 4pm, it was sitting on another roof but this time if stayed put, allowing for more photo's and even coming to feed a couple of times.  I could finally relax and remove the 26 year-old bvd (better view desired) annotation from my lifelist!

Mock star

Last weekend, I paid a visit to the rock star, 1st for Germany Northern Mockingbird which has been attracting admirers from far and wide since it was found in early September.  I've seen plenty of these in the US, including earlier this year, and I wouldn't normally twitch an American vagrant just for my WP list but a friend planted the seed in my head and it seemed a nice area for a walk so I decided to give it a try anyway.  The fields were full of Skylarks which kept getting flushed by a hunting, juvenile Hen Harrier and, within 50 minutes of heading out from the nearest train station, I joined a small crowd watching the bird.  It was in its favourite apple tree, seemed to be healthy and there were plenty of apples left to keep it sustained through the winter.  The only fly in the ointment is that the rather unassuming farmland location is very close to the Rhine, meaning it is very likely to have spent at least part of its transatlantic voyage on a ship, which may well damage its chances of being accepted as a true vagrant.  Either way, it was nice to see this side of the Atlantic, especially when it started stretching for the assembled paparazzi.

Sibchat

I got my 335th species in Belgium two days ago thanks to this 1st-year Siberian Stonechat which has turned up in Ostend.  It was in the company of a few regular Stonechats and Whinchats and, from this angle, could easily be mistaken for the latter species.  The pale supercilium is only visible head-on, however, and is virtually invisible from the side.

I'd only ever seen this species in Israel before and have never really made an effort to connect with one here.  The first Belgian bird was recorded in 1993 and there have been just 16 previous records, so it is still less than annual, although one bird did spend all of last winter at the Belgian coast.  This one has been here for five days so far so may also stick around for a while. 

Corsican endemics

Back in June, I decided to escape our wettest spring since 1905 by organising a short, last-minute trip to Corsica.  This was one of just two places left in Europe where I could reasonably expect to find more than one new bird, the other being Spain, and I hired a local guide to maximise my chances.  This proved to be a wise move since, within the first couple of hours of my first morning on the island, I had already seen all three target species.  The first, and my 2800th species in the world, was this handsome Corsican Finch singing all around us, closely followed by a distant Marmora's Warbler giving a brief burst of its scratchy song.  The final new species of the morning and my most wanted of course, was Corsican Nuthatch up at the Col de Sorba.

With another three full days left on the island, I could then relax and enjoy some of the butterflies of the island, including a couple more endemics like this Corsican Heath.

I ended up seeing 31 species of butterfly including the extremely rare and critically endangered Large Blue, as well as my first Cleopatra and Cardinal Fritillary.

Accidental lifer

During my Cranberry Fritillary expedition to the Hautes Fagnes, and since I knew the area was also good for dragonflies, I made a conscious effort to photograph any odonata that would sit still long enough.  There were very few about, however, and this was one of just two species I managed to photograph, the other being a Four-spotted Chaser.  I fully expected this to be yet another common species and tentatively uploaded it to iNaturalist as an Azure Bluet, a species which I see pretty much everywhere, Brussels included.  My identification was soon corrected, however, as this is actually a female Spearhead Bluet or Northern Damselfly, a species which has disappeared from much of its former range and is now very rare in Belgium. 
Now I'm fast running out of new butterfly species to find in Belgium, I should perhaps start working on my odonata list!

Cranberry craziness

I finally managed to connect with my first Cranberry Fritillaries last weekend.  In Belgium, this species is restricted to peat bogs in the Ardennes and I have made several trips to try and find one over the years but only twice seen a distant fritillary in flight which may or may not have been another species.  This time, the reserve seemed very quiet at first but I soon spotted a fritillary feeding on a thistle and managed to fire off a few record shots.

I was, however, standing on a boardwalk in the middle of a bog so couldn't get any closer and the butterfly quickly dropped down into the grasses and disappeared.  I thus decided to try the cycle path surrounding the reserve since the verges had a lot more flowers than the bog itself plus my movements would be less restricted there.  This was a wise move since I soon saw another Cranberry Fritillary, then two more, and eventually counted around 20 individuals over the next hour or two!

B(erl)ingo!

I was back in Berlin again last weekend so just had to make another visit to my favourite birding spot, Moorlinse Buch.  The breeding Red-necked Grebes were not visible on the main lake but I did find this juvenile, complete with red neck, on an adjacent marshy pond.  I never realised they acquired their denominative colouration at such an early age.

I had, however, done a bit of butterfly research beforehand and noticed that one of my most wanted butterflies had been recorded a few times at another reserve just a short walk away.  I thus set out to explore the new area, not really expecting to have any luck but, as soon as I got there, I noticed my first Large Chequered Skipper feeding on flowers alongside the path!

It was the only one I saw, despite walking around for another two hours, so I could hardly believe my tiny bit of research had actually worked and got me this beautifully-patterned, rare butterfly which is probably extinct in Belgium.

POPLAR ADMIRAL!

Poplar Admiral is probably the rarest of Belgium's breeding butterflies, occurring in a single locality along the French border.  There are only ever a few individuals and they have a ridiculously short flying period of roughly two weeks, so that one only has a very small window, usually from mid-June, to try to see one.  Furthermore, they spend most of their time high up in the trees, only occasionally coming down to the ground.

I've been to their location several times over the past few years, but always too late.  This year's wet spring seems to have delayed things a little and it has been seen regularly this past week so, yesterday, I gave it a try.  A few White Admirals along the way were a good omen, as was this Purple Emperor in the car park as soon as I arrived.

Once in the reserve, however, it soon became apparent how few butterflies are already on the wing and several people had been looking for the admiral all morning without success.  After a while, I thus went off and explored the surrounding area, again seeing very little, but, once I got back to the reserve I found two guys with their cameras pointing at a muddy puddle.  They beckoned me over and there it was, a beautiful, male Poplar Admiral taking minerals from the mud.

At first, it stubbornly refused to open its wings but, after taking dozens of underwing shots, it eventually moved a little further and rested with its wings open!

Going by the reports, it looks like this individual was the only one seen all day, and then only for about an hour or so by just four people.  I was thus very lucky to finally get to see our rarest butterfly and my 83rd of the 90 or so regularly-occurring species in Belgium.

Nocturne

I've had some good owl karma this year, seeing both Tawny Owl and Long-eared Owl in January, a hunting Short-eared Owl in March and two new species during my US trip in April.  Two weekends ago, I tried an evening walk in the Sonian Forest and, although I heard at least three Tawny Owls, I was unable to locate any.  A visiting birder had mentioned Tawny Owl was on his target list, so I suggested we give it a try last weekend, confident we should at least hear them but not really expecting to see one.  We started much too early, however, and it took almost 90 minutes before we heard anything, but then we were suddenly surrounded by begging calls.  After a good amount of searching, I finally found a recently fledged Tawny Owl sitting in a sapling at eye level, with a myriad of dancing fireflies making the observation even more magical.  The Little Owls of Brussels, on the other hand, are not co-operating and have been hiding every time I have tried to see them so far this year, although I did find this Little Grebe sitting on an unusually exposed nest.

Stateside birding (part 3)

From Oakland, CA, I took the overnight train to Eugene, OR, waking up at 6am to wonderful views of Mount Shasta.  It rained for most of my 3.5 days in Oregon but that didn't stop us from birding from the Pacific coast up to the snow patches on Marys Peak, tallying around 150 species, including eight lifers.

The first was an immature White-winged Scoter amongst the hundreds of Surf Scoters on the sea, while this well-camouflaged Western Screech-Owl was only our second owl of day 2, having already seen a Northern Pygmy-Owl that morning.

Best of all, though, was my final morning spent in Skinner Butte, a park which rises above the city and acts as a migrant trap.  Here, we encountered a fall of over 100 warblers, at least half of which were Orange-crowned, with smaller numbers of Wilson's, Nashville, Black-throated Grey, Townsend's and 1 MacGillivray's, as well as several Warbling Vireos.  The main target of this trip was Hermit Warbler, the only western warbler I'd never seen, and there just had to be one somewhere amongst the madness but it took us a good couple of hours of checking every single warbler until we finally found it.