My regular patch along the edge of the forest in south-eastern Brussels is well known amongst Brussels birders but doesn't usually get much attention from further afield. The only rare birds of note it usually gets are the small group of Red-crested Pochards and our female Ferruginous Duck, both of which come back each winter. It is, however, the only place in Brussels with a nice mixture of habitats so that you can find a good range of species: I regularly see around 50 species if I spend a few hours there. I'm also officially the observer who has the highest species count within the reserve - 95 at the moment. In all the years I've been going there, however, I've never seen anything quite like today. The Bittern it took me several attemps to see has been showing a bit more regularly recently and has attracted a lot of admirers since my last post. This morning, though, someone looking for it suddenly noticed there were actually two of them, standing within a few feet of each other! By the time I got there, a huge (for Brussels at least) crowd of about 20 people had developed and I had to jostle myself into position to see the evidence for myself.
Both of them must have excelled in their Bittern code-of-conduct exams as they were doing a great job at blending into the reeds and making photographing them impossible, but this Grey Heron was so busy hunting it didn't see me coming and then seemed to decide it was better to freeze and try to look invisible rather than make itself even more conspicuous by flying away. The Bitterns should definitely start giving lessons!
