Blue Monday

Today was my last chance to do some Belgian butterflying this year since I'll soon be leaving for Brazil and won't be back until most of them have finished flying.  I thus decided to visit one of my favourite nature reserves at the southernmost extremity of Belgium in the hope of adding Adonis Blue to my Belgian list.  It didn't take long until I found this very co-operative female but I first saw a Green-underside Blue, which is almost as rare and I have only seen once before.  Two rather early Dark-Green Fritillaries were also my first in Belgium and there must have been a dozen or more Pearly Heaths flying around.

This Military Orchid was one of three orchid species I found but perhaps the biggest surprise of the day was a singing Turtle Dove, which I've not heard for several years due to them being hunted to extinction in the Mediterranean.  After a long and very quiet walk through the forest, I emerged into another nature reserve where I finished off by adding a third species, Mazarine Blue, to my Belgian list and even got a fleeting glimpse of a wild cat!

Pearly Heath

The Duke of Burgundy

Last week, I had a day's butterflying in Belgian Luxembourg and found 20 different species including my lifer Duke of Burgundy.  It used to be called Duke of Burgundy Fritillary although it is, in fact, the only European representative of the metalmark family, which are mostly found in tropical South America.  The underside of the wings is very similar to some of our fritillaries but that part of the name got dropped for being scientifically incorrect, although nobody is really sure as to why it was named after the Duke of Burgundy!  I also added another two species to my ever-growing Belgian butterfly list, including the extremely rare Small Blue, and saw both male and female Sooty Copper.  The best experience, though, was sitting in a meadow surrounded by ten or more Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries feeding on flowers which eventually resulted in this wonderful 'open-and-closed' shot.

Fritillary fulfilment

Spurred on by my lifer Western Orphean Warbler and Green-winged Orchid, a couple of days later I had a go at trying to add Glanville Fritillary to my butterfly list.  This is an endangered and scarce butterfly in Belgium with only a handful of isolated populations, one of which is within walking distance of Lommel train station.  As soon as I got to the area, I immediately spotted a pair copulating and I spent the next hour or so surrounded by perhaps a dozen of them, taking plenty of pictures of these beauties.  Getting a photograph with the wings open was difficult, but I persevered, although the underside is actually more distinctive on this species, as it is with most fritillaries.

Warbler workout

Last Sunday, a Western Orphean Warbler was found singing in the province of Namur.  This was a first for Belgium and, although it was a very long way from Brussels, it was a lifer for me so I just had to give it a try!  Early Monday morning, therefore, I set off on the two hour train journey followed by a brisk 1.5 hour walk without even knowing if the bird was still there.  The scenery was wonderful as you can see above and I finally got there around 10:20 am to hear the bird had been singing all morning but had stopped just five minutes before I arrived.  At least it hadn't flown!  I thus started to wait while everyone else gradually left, satisfied with the views they'd had.  Four hours later I was still waiting and there had been no sign of the bird whatsoever when it suddenly popped up into a bush for 1.5 seconds and promptly disappeared again.  Over the next hour, it sang continuously and I got a couple more glimpses of it in flight but never really a satisfactory look at all of the features, although I did get to see its distinctive white eye.  In the meantime, I'd been wandering off and exploring the surroundings, enjoying my first Yellowhammers, Garden Warbler and Red-backed Shrike of the year.  I also photographed this orchid, which I only identified as my first Green-winged Orchid once I got home.

Lord of the dance

I found my first Wood Warbler of the year singing in the Sonian Forest today and, whilst some of our migrant species are only just arriving, various resident species have got a headstart; I also saw a clutch of seven baby Coots, for example.  Even within the same species, certain birds already have young or are on nests, while others are just beginning their courtship rituals.  I visited one lake earlier in the week where this first Great Crested Grebe was sitting on its nest, whilst its neighbours (below) were still busy dancing.

Big Belgian day (and a half)

I've always wanted to try a big day in Belgium to see just how many species I can find but have never got round to it, mainly due to the early start required and lots of travelling this would involve.  I guided for a visiting birder from Texas at the weekend, however, who told me he wanted to see as many species as possible since it was his first time here.  We thus met up at 6am Saturday and got off to a great start with a singing Grey Wagtail and migrant Lesser Whitethroat right in the centre of Brussels.  We then took the train to Mechels Broek, just outside Mechelen, where a singing Cuckoo greeted us and we had impeccable timing, arriving in the hide just before a migrating group of 7 Greenshank and one juvenile Ruff arrived to refuel.  By the end of the morning session there, the day list was already at 65 species.  We then headed towards the coast and the Uitkerkse Polders, where Black-tailed Godwits, Lapwings and Redshanks were displaying.  Our amazing timing continued as we arrived near the visitor centre just as the two Black-winged Stilts, which had arrived earlier in the week, flew in, only to have moved on again by the time we headed back.

We also finally got cracking views of a Bluethroat singing from a fencepost, having seen just one in silhouette in the early morning twilight at Mechels Broek.  The biggest excitement of the day, however, was provided by a mixed group of wagtails.  As Yellow Wagtail was one of our target species, I had just said "If any wagtails are around, they'll be here amongst the sheep", when we spotted our first Pied, accompanied by three White Wagtails.  The group also held four Yellow Wagtails of the British race flavissima plus a very unusual looking bird, which I thought might be an immature or hybrid Citrine Wagtail.  I put the word out and some other birders at the coast managed to get some decent pictures of it with lots of discussion as result but, in the end, it seems like it was just an unusually coloured Blue-headed Wagtail.  We then had a mad dash to Heist, where a Ring Ouzel had been reported earlier in the day, but to no avail so we headed back to Brussels having walked around 18km and seen or heard 85 species in total.
The following morning, we met early again for three hours around my Brussels patch before work (!) to try and add some woodland species, culminating in wonderful views of a pair of Middle Spotted Woodpeckers.  Our final bird of the morning was a heard-only Reed Warbler, the first of the year for the Brussels region and our 96th species in one and a half days.

Like clockwork

It's that time of year again when you really need to get out every couple of days just to keep up with all the migrant species arriving.  I'm well behind since I did very little during the second half of March, my days off always seeming to coincide with the worst weather.  As a result, the only migrants I managed to connect with last month were White Stork, Chiffchaff, Garganey and Blackcap.  Blackcaps usually arrive by the end of March and I heard my first of the year in my neighbouring park on 26 March.  I'm always amazed how migrants somehow arrive bang on time, regardless of the prevailing weather conditions.  Swifts, for example, have usually arrived in the skies above Brussels around 30 April each year, but it would seem that Pallid Harriers have an internal clock to make even Swiss watchmakers jealous.  A male Pallid Harrier passed the migration watchpoint at Breskens (NL) on 31 Mar 2017 at 11h35.  This year, what was almost certainly the same individual, since Pallid Harriers are few and far between along the Belgian and Dutch coasts, passed the same watchpoint on 31 Mar at 11h25; on the exact same day and just ten minutes earlier than a year before!

A pair of Black Redstarts and this dapper White Wagtail have returned to my Brussels patch and, yesterday, I visited the Belgian equivalent of Breskens to seem some migration for myself.  We didn't get any Pallid Harriers but I did see a four-figure amount of Meadow Pipits, with well over 100 each of both Linnet and Brambling.  Other highlights were around 50 Swallows, 26 Spoonbill, 3 Great White Egret, 3 Marsh Harrier, one Black Kite and one Short-eared Owl.  Of course, I only saw a fraction of the 23,000+ birds passing and arrived too late for the Ring Ouzel but the total day count, a cumulative effort by around 30 observers, can be found here.