There was phenomenal migration of Skylarks this weekend. The first thing I noticed was when I got home yesterday evening and saw a small group of birds heading over my balcony towards the setting sun. I couldn't identify them but the flight action made me think of larks so I went online to investigate since birds passing over the centre of Brussels so late in the day was a good indicator something big was happening. Sure enough, migration watches all over Belgium and The Netherlands had reported day counts of 3000-4000 or more Skylarks, smashing the daily total records in several places. With excellent migration weather forecast this morning miraculously coinciding with my day off work, I decided to start the day with my own migration count from the luxury of my balcony. From 8am to 9am, I counted at least 115 Skylarks plus one possible Woodlark passing overhead, with a supporting cast of 110 Starlings, around 50 Chaffinches, 4 White Wagtails, one flock of unidentified corvids, possibly Rooks, several Song Thrushes, and a probable Reed Bunting. It was tempting to stay and keep on counting but, with so much happening plus lots of good rarities at the coast, I just had to get out of Brussels. Within ten minutes of arriving, I was admiring this beautiful Red-breasted Flycatcher, which has been gracing a small patch of trees in Ostend for the past twelve days.
Not wasting any time, I then moved to the migrant trap of the Sashul in Heist where both Yellow-browed and Pallas' Warblers had been reported. The latter had not been seen for over two hours but I soon heard the distinctive, disyllabic call of a Yellow-browed Warbler and, after a lot of cat-and-mouse searching, I eventually got a good look at it. Whilst I was watching it, however, another one called behind me so there were definitely two of them present, together with both Firecrest and Goldcrest pretending to be the lost Pallas' Warbler. After that, I just had a quick look at the first fields of the Uitkerkse Polders, where a group of almost 600 White-fronted Geese contained single Barnacle and Pink-footed Geese, and a Fieldfare flew off with a group of Redwings, no doubt heading into the night on the next step of their migration. All day long, though, I kept hearing and seeing the odd Skylark on migration, with groups of Chaffinches coming in off the sea. Looking at the various migration counts for today, yesterday's totals pale into insignificance with one site to the north of Antwerp recording a staggering 12071 Skylarks today. Boom!
