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.
