My first post of the new year was supposed to be my traditional annual review, including the nomination of my 2024 bird of the year. That idea, and pretty much everything else, got dropped, however, when I learned of France's 2nd-ever Moussier's Redstart within half an hour's walk of a train station near Montpellier. Moussier's Redstart is one of my most-wanted birds in the world, there are direct (and relatively cheap) TGVs from Brussels to Montpellier, plus any excuse to get away from the wintry gloom of Brussels was good enough for me to book a spontaneous, 2-day trip to the Med!
Having left Brussels at 08:15, I was at the location just seven hours later, although it then took myself and a local lady at least half an hour to finally spot the bird, feeding actively but ever so discretely on the far side of a fenced-off field. I got to watch it for around 45-minutes and even managed to get a few, distant record shots to prove I'd seen it.
It was far away, though, and the light was fading fast so I called it a day. Rather than travelling so far there and back on consecutive days and in order to give myself a full day to find the bird just in case it didn't show the first afternoon, I'd booked two nights in Montpellier and resolved to return the following morning in the hope of getting some better pictures. Immediately upon my arrival, I located him (a first-winter male) again but this time he was feeding along the road, repeatedly perching so close to me that I had to step back in order to focus.
