Birdy New Year

December was so wet and windy, the only Belgian birding I did was from my balcony.  Yesterday, we finally had a brief respite so I made the most of the nice morning by spending a few hours at my Brussels patch.  I also wanted to get my 2018 list off to a good start and the first 40 or so species were relatively easy with all the regular species showing well, including this Middle Spotted Woodpecker.

After that, I really wanted to try and reach 50 species so I had another look over the lake from the entrance to the reserve and suddenly noticed a Snipe sitting in front of the reeds!  This is only the second record for the reserve and my first one there and in Brussels a whole, where this species is quite a rarity.  Despite that nice surprise, I was still only on 49 species, so I made a little detour to another park where I knew there should be Great Crested Grebe, which I found straight away.  I then added Hawfinch and Sparrowhawk, taking the day's tally to a very respectable 52 species.