Amazonian returns part 1

I had a couple of weeks off at the end January and returned to the Amazon for the first time since 2018!  I started in Belém, where a fellow guide helped me to tick off a few species I'd only glimpsed or heard before such as the localised Willis's Antbird, Black-tailed Tityra and Amazonian Grosbeak.  Our rarest sighting by far was this female Belém Woodpecker, which has a very restricted range, but it was just as nice to see some of the commoner species such as toucans, trogons and woodcreepers again.  Most of our birding was done in a park on the outskirts of the city, where this Collins' Squirrel Monkey decided the attention we were paying it warranted a rest.

Being the rainy season, there weren't many butterflies around but a visit to the botanical garden within the city did provide us with this exquisite Spangled Cupid, a metalmark that is trying its best to look like a Lycaenid.

Having spent all of my last day scouring the various city parks to no avail for Jandaya Parakeet, I was amazed to find four of them in the airport car park before flying on to my next destination.

Smientenspektakel

Back in 2022, I stumbled across what has to be one of the greatest (and least known) natural spectacles of The Netherlands, namely the pre-migration gathering of tens of thousands of Wigeon near Gouda.  I've been meaning to go back ever since but never got round to it until last week.  It was a beautiful, spring day with my first butterflies of 2026 (a Peacock and a male Brimstone) on the wing and I could already hear the calls before I got to the largest and furthest lake, where all the birds had congregated.

The sound was phenomenal, especially whenever part of the huge raft would take flight and relocate to another part of the lake.  Just as in 2022, it was impossible to estimate the numbers involved although I did try and got to around 12,000 before giving up; it was probably more like 20,000 or even more. 
A pair of Red-necked Grebes, some Black-necked Grebes coming into breeding plumage and two, male Red-crested Pochard were nice distractions but it was difficult to take my eyes off the Wigeon show.  Turn the volume up to watch the video - sorry for the snapping of the camera but a very few Dutch birders were also there to witness the spectacle.

Geese in the mist

This week, I finally managed to return to Texel for yet another international twitch, this time for the 1st-winter Black-faced Bunting that has been there since mid-December.  Since the bird has been showing best in the mornings, I booked an overnight stay, but I still had a few hours of daylight left once I arrived and so headed straight there from the ferry.  After a two-month stay, there was nobody else around but the friendly owner of the garden told me where it is usually seen and said I was welcome to walk around his property.  After almost an hour I had more or less given up and was just about to leave when a couple from The Hague arrived, so I decided to have one more look with them and found it within 10 minutes of their arrival!  We got an excellent, close-up view but it disappeared again before we could take any pictures.  The plan was to go back again the next morning but I awoke to heavy mist and, since already I'd seen it so well, I decided to do a bicycle tour of the southern half of the island instead.  This was very atmospheric, with the calls of invisible geese and singing Skylarks echoing all around.  It took several hours for the mist to finally clear but, by the time I boarded the ferry back to the mainland, I'd seen/heard at least 71 species, including a family party of 4 Bewick's Swans, Spoonbill, Ruff, a male Hen Harrier and a hunting Merlin.

2025 review - butterflies et al

I did a bit better finding new butterflies during 2025, starting with Reverdin's Blue at a German nature reserve close to Basel.  From there, I took the train down to Barcelona for a few days, seeing Iberian Scarce Swallowtail and photographing both False Ilex Hairstreak and Spanish Gatekeeper.  My favourite spot in Berlin again turned up trumps with a repeat sighting of Large Chequered Skipper, first seen there in 2024, as well as my lifer Chestnut Heath.  Despite returning to Modane for the fourth time, my July visit there still provided another 5 lifers - Alpine Blue, Mountain Fritillary, Grison's Fritillary, Silky Ringlet and Dewy Ringlet, meaning I have now photographed over 100 species in the area!  I then got a Woodland Grayling in Fontainebleau Forest, before trying some Pyrenean butterflying near Luchon, succesfully finding three more ringlets - the local form of Yellow-spotted, a single Water, and the endemic Pyrenees Brassy.  My 15th and final new species of the year was this Astaut's Blue, the southern equivalent of Common Blue, in the Algarve.  With all this butterflying around Europe, I didn't find any new ones in Belgium, although a trip to a butterfly reserve in the province of Luxembourg did get me my lifer Dainty Damselfly.  Finally, I didn't realise it at the time, but documenting the seals in Ostend harbour, I managed to get a picture of two species together - Grey Seal and Harbour Seal.

Hawfy New Year!

Today, I finally made it to my Brussels patch of Rouge-Cloître/Roodklooster for the first time this year.  It started really well, with a Goshawk perched near the entrance being mobbed by several Magpies plus a Carrion Crow, which, at one point, divebombed it and yanked its tail!  I got several of the scarce species I hope to see there at this time of year, including Goldcrest, Firecrest and 3 Teal but the pièce de résistance were Hawfinches.  I'd already spotted one amongst a small flock of Greenfinches and was walking along the tree-lined path near the allotments when this one flew up from the ground.  I fumbled for my camera and managed to get this first shot but, after a while, it returned to the path to feed, showing ridiculously well for such a shy and secretive species.  I ended up with 41 species around the reserve, plus a Peregrine seen from the tram on my way there.

Snowy start

The first weekend of 2026 brought snow and sub-zero temperatures to most of Belgium, including Brussels, so I had no desire to do my traditional New Year's tour of my patch and planned to stay indoors and catch up on various things instead, not least my blog.  I had just published the first part of my 2025 review and was about to prepare lunch, when my phone started going crazy with news of a first for Brussels just 20 minutes away!  I got dressed as quickly as I could and rushed out without lunch, trying not to slip over on the snow and ice.  There were already a handful of birders at the university campus when I arrived and it didn't take long until I was watching my 7th Hume's Leaf Warbler, a species I first twitched in The Netherlands in 2012 and have seen just five times since (four in Belgium plus one in Israel).  Amazingly, this bird was discovered by people looking for the Pallas' Warbler reported the previous day and seen by just one person.  The Hume's showed well all weekend long but there was no sign of the Pallas', until Monday evening when someone discovered the Pallas' Warbler's roosting spot, to which it has returned to sleep every day this week, although I've not yet been to see it.  Other than that, the only other birding I've done so far this year has been from my balcony plus a return visit to the Brambling roost in Anderlecht.  The first bird arrived alone around 16:15 and sat waiting for his friends to arrive.  By 5pm, there were around 300 of them, much less than last week, no doubt as a result of the New Year's Eve fireworks, but still lovely to see in the evening sun.

2025 review - birds

2025 got off to a good start with international twitches to two lifers but rapidly ran out of steam, with just 1.5 more for the rest of the year.  Here, as usual, are my best birds of the past twelve months (lifers in CAPS).

January - the gorgeous, 1st winter male MOUSSIER'S REDSTART I successfully twitched near Montpellier.
February - another international twitch to the hugely popular SPECTACLED EIDER found on Texel in early January and which stayed until early June.  Against all expectation, he reappeared in early October but, unfortunately, became sick and had to be taken into care last week.

March - Long-tailed Tit (Brussels); a tip from a photographer I meet regularly on my local patch led me to one of their nests.
April - Savi's Warbler (Uitkerkse Polders); having seen my first one for Belgium there in 2024, there seemed to be a considerable influx this spring with at least three singing birds.
May - BALEARIC SHEARWATER (Spain); good looks, including comparisons with Yelkouan Shearwater, of this long overdue lifer during a birding trip near Sitges with Catalan Bird Tours.
June - Tree Sparrow (Berlin); Moorlinse Buch has become my 'patch' away from home whenever I visit Berlin so I was especially pleased to see the local Tree Sparrows with some very cute fledglings.
July - Lammergeier (Alps and Pyrenees); an immature passing right over me in the Alps followed by prolonged views of two adults later in the month.
August - Hoopoe (Brussels); another one on my local patch, in exactly the same spot as the last one three years ago, this one even showed well for one of my guided tours.
September - White Stork (Brussels); some unusually successful vismig forecasting resulted in me seeing a flock of around 150 from my balcony, with a second, smaller group later in the month.
October - Common Rosefinch (Vlieland); a self-found, 1st-winter bird was the rarest species during another autumn weekend on Vlieland.
November - Goshawk (Cologne); a pair seen exceptionally well in a city park.  Berlin is famous for its city Goshawks but I had no idea they were in the parks of Cologne too.
December - Brambling (West Flanders and Brussels); three on the ground under a feeder at a reserve in West Flanders were eclipsed by the discovery of a huge roost (at least for Brussels) of around 600 individuals towards the end of the month!

So, as you may have noticed, a lot of my 2025 birding was outside of Belgium, resulting in a Belgian year list of 191 species, the last addition being a male Smew at one of their few remaining regular wintering spots in Belgium.  I added three new species to my Belgian list - the heard-only Thrush Nightingale, Woodchat Shrike and Pectoral Sandpiper, and my balcony list stayed on 80 species although I finally managed to see a silhouette of the Tawny Owl which first appeared briefly in November 2024 and seems to have returned. 
My various trips around Europe took my year list to 282 species, the lifers being Moussier's Redstart, Spectacled Eider, Balearic Shearwater and heard-only Red-necked Nightjar, which, together with a few armchair splits, takes me to 2810 in the world.
My bird of the year, of course, has to be the rock-star Spectacled Eider; here's hoping he recovers and can be released again to continuing hanging around with the Common Eiders off Texel.