Dainty surprise

My birding starts to take a backseat in June as my attention is drawn to butterflies and dragonflies.  Yesterday, I visited one of Belgium's best reserves for butterflies near Couvin and it was swarming with Marbled Whites.  I saw at least 22 species, culminating in this magnificent Lesser Purple Emperor.  A couple of weeks ago, I tried and failed to find my lifer Dainty Damselfly, a Mediterranean species which is rapidly spreading north, after one had been reported in a Brussels park.  The following day, I went looking for butterflies in Belgian Luxembourg, not finding the species I was hoping for but getting this nice High Brown Fritillary instead.  I also took a few damselfly photo's and, once I got home, I realised they were Dainty Damselflies, the very species I'd tried to find the day before!

The Belgian Alps?

Twitching rarities often takes you to some strange places but yesterday has got to be the most bizarre twitch I have ever done!  On 22nd January, an Alpine Accentor, only the 10th for Belgium, was unexpectedly discovered within the walls of Bouillon castle by a group doing a bat survey.  It is still there so I finally made the three-hour long journey by train and bus to Bouillon and paid my entrance fee to the castle, where I had to walk through underground tunnels, past dungeons and a torture chamber (!) to reach the inner courtyard where the bird is often seen.  There was no sign of it of course, so I continued on along winding stairways, peering out of turret windows, to the highest point of the castle.  There were two other birders present but, after half an hour, none of us had seen anything so I headed back down into the courtyard, where I suddenly heard an unfamiliar song.  I looked up and there it was, blending in perfectly with the rock wall.

It was constantly in subsong, even when it was feeding, and, at one point, came to within a couple of metres of us to feed on some breadcrumbs.  What a gorgeous little bird and a joy to watch, having only seen them a few times before in the Alps, at elevations of 2000m or more. 
We're only a few weeks into 2023 but Belgium may already have its bird of the year.

Back to buntings

I finally got to do my first real birding/butterflying in over two months last weekend and immediately added a new species to my Belgian list by twitching this male Cirl Bunting which has set up territory in the province of Namur.  Despite the crappy photo, I got to see it really well and also heard it singing, its song sounding a bit like a half-hearted Yellowhammer.  I saw and heard a few Yellowhammers too, with at least three families of Red-backed Shrike, several Melodious Warblers and a great look at an adult Honey Buzzard.  There were also quite a few butterflies around, with lots of Gatekeepers plus this Scarce Swallowtail, which is rare in Belgium and usually only found around Couvin in the very south.

 

Golden tigers

Long-tailed Blue; or tiger blue as it is known in Dutch due to the stripey pattern of the underwing, is another migratory butterfly which is scarce in Belgium but seems to be undertaking a minor invasion this year.  One group of them have found a patch of Broad-leaved Pea, one of its host plants, along the River Sambre near the French border and seemed to be hanging around so I gave it a try earlier this week.  I went before work and so arrived before there was any activity but, after about fifteen minutes of waiting, I spotted one on a flower and, by 11:30am, when I had to leave for work, there were at least three flying around, with one female observed ovipositing.  It is doubtful whether the caterpillars will be able to survive a Belgian winter but I was very pleased at finding my 11th new species of butterfly in Belgium this year, and the close-up photo's reveal some subtle, golden scaling which wasn't obvious in the field.

Black-winged conquerors

Back in 2017, a very thorough paper appeared in Dutch Birding detailing the extraordinary range expansion of Black-winged Kites in both Israel (from 1 to 150 breeding pairs in less than five years) and France (a threefold increase between 2010 and 2014), accompanied by a strong increase in vagrancy elsewhere, especially in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland.  The authors of that paper concluded that we could "expect a further expansion of the breeding population's range...to eastern and northern France" but not even they predicted breeding in Belgium.  Well, the unthinkable has happened and, last week, a pair were found nesting in the Hautes Fagnes!  Above is a habitat shot of the area but, if you look closely, you can just about see a white blob at the top of the two conifers on either side of the photo.  They are nesting at the centre of a nature reserve with no access but the path around the periphery allows for good, albeit distant views, and I got to see them mating, hunting, and taking turns on the nest.  In this heavily cropped image, you can even make out the black wings and mask on one of the birds.

They are known to breed all year, but this is exceptionally late so fingers crossed it doesn't get too cold for them too soon. 
Having got my fill of my 316th species in Belgium, I continued the lovely walk around the nature reserve, seeing my first Great Grey Shrike of the year as well as several Red Kites and two late Swifts, while this pair of Black Darters were also busy ensuring the next generation.

Going dotty

Spot the birdy!

It's that short, end of summer period when Belgium is visited by the likes of Aquatic Warbler, Tawny Pipit and Eurasian Dotterel, all of which are virtually impossible to see at any other time of the year.  The latter species is one of my favourites and it has been five years since I saw my first and only group of birds in Belgium so I couldn't resist giving them another try once I heard of a large group in farmland near Liège, just 6 kilometres from the nearest train station.  As is often the case when looking for Dotterels, I arrived to find what appeared to be an empty field, with no sign of the birds whatsoever.  After about ten minutes, though, I noticed one way off in the distance on the crest of the hill, with more heads coming into view as they came over the crest and starting walking downhill towards me.  

I first counted nine of them, with five birds moving off to the right and the other four coming even closer to my left.  I was relocating towards the group of five when I suddenly heard lots of calling and noticed a large group of 30 forming high in the sky and heading off to the south-west on the next leg of their migration.  Having taken my eyes off them, the five on the ground had disappeared so I headed back to the other four, only to find they had become 18, making a grand total of 48, which is more than I have seen in my lifetime!  There was a nice mix of plumages, including males, females and juveniles, and some came unbelievably close so that even I could get a few decent pictures.

There were a few other migrants around, including several Wheatears, two Whinchats and lots of Yellow Wagtails but the icing on the cake was a hunting, juvenile Hen Harrier on my way back to the train station.

Doing the Dourbes

Yesterday, I visited Dourbes nature reserve, which was awash with hundreds of Chalkhill Blues.  This has got to my favourite butterfly site in Belgium since it has a great variety of species, and I managed to chalk up a day list of 26 of them, including only my 2nd Scarce Swallowtail in Belgium and my third Purple Hairstreak.  A pair of Honey Buzzards did their best to distract me by floating around right above my head but I only managed one shot since my camera was set up for photographing the blues.

It took me three attempts last year to finally see my first-in-Belgium Weaver's Fritillary here.  There were quite a few of them yesterday but they are one of our smallest fritillaries and never sit still for long, making photographing them quite a challenge.

Night, night

I visited a nature reserve south of Leuven over the weekend and was surprised to find this sleepy, second-year Night Heron sitting out in the open.  The bird has been present at the reserve since 24 May but hadn't been reported for over two weeks so I wasn't expecting to see it, especially in the middle of the day, which is way past its bedtime.  This was only my third in Belgium and the first since 2013 as it is a very rare breeding species here.  Yesterday, I made another attempt at finding Cranberry Fritillary at a different reserve in Belgian Luxembourg.  The weather was not great for butterflies, however, although I did eventually see Marbled Fritillary, lots of Small Pearl-bordered Fritillaries plus another, which may well have been Cranberry but just didn't stop long enough for me to tell.  There were Red-backed Shrikes everywhere and it was nice to see lots of Siskins, which I only usually get to see during winter.  Originally, I was going to walk there and back from Libramont train station (roughly 6km one-way) but, once there, I decided to continue on to the next train station instead and ended up hiking 20km!  The only new butterfly for the year was this lovely Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia).

The Queen of Spain

Two years on from my first Duke of Burgundy, I finally added Queen of Spain Fritillary to my Belgian list yesterday.  This is actually quite a widespread species and probably the commonest fritillary in Belgium yet it tends to be found in impoverished habitats where few other butterflies occur.  This, together with the fact that I'd already seen it in a couple of other countries, meant that I'd never really made the effort to see one in Belgium.  The reserve of La Rochette, east of Liège, holds the biggest population in Wallonia due to the abundance of its hostplant, Viola lutea.

The pansy fields held very little else but the adjoining grasslands were full of hundreds of Small Skippers, here just about showing the tell-tale ochre-tipped antennae which help distinguish it from the very similar Essex Skipper (which has black tips).

There were also a few Marbled Fritillaries, my first this year, singing Yellowhammer and Tree Pipit, and some cool beetles around.  I have tentatively identified this one as Cicindela campestris, or Green Tiger Beetle.

Terretelle part 2

Arriving early at the reserve, the only butterflies which seemed to be active were Black-veined Whites but that's nothing to complain about when they land on a clover right in front of you like this one did.  The heart of the reserve and most important section for butterflies seemed quiet at first until I almost stepped on this rather worn Duke of Burgundy.

 
This is one of the flagship species of the reserve and it's the only place I've seen it yet it has a rather short flight period and is by no means easy to find so I was quite surprised to stumble across this one without even trying.  I then started noticing more and more Black Hairstreaks in the bushes and must have seen at least a dozen of them.

After the dragonfly distractions, I finally made it to the fritillary meadow where I first found Pearly Heath, before eventually spotting two species of fritillaries.  They were ever so flighty and only this False Heath Fritillary sat long enough for me to get pictures, but I'm fairly certain the other one was Small Pearl-bordered, another species for which this reserve is known.

Terretelle part 1

I'm getting around a bit more now that we can travel within Belgium again but have been wondering what to do with all my enforced free time.  Stuck in a dilemma whether to try and catch up on the birds I've missed so far this year, see as many butterflies as possible, or try for some new dragonflies, I went back to a great little reserve in Belgian Luxembourg on Thursday.  This is primarily a butterfly reserve but, having not been south of Brussels so far this year, there were a few potential birds to add to my year list too.  Sure enough, as soon as I got there, I was watching the first of many singing Lesser Whitethroats, soon to be followed by Yellowhammer (with recently fledged young), a heard-only Nightingale and one Melodious Warbler.  The only bird I'd expected but hadn't yet seen was a Red-backed Shrike until I came to what looked like some perfect habitat, thought to myself there's gotta be one here, and then spotted this male right on cue.

I was there nice and early and the first couple of hours were all about the birds but, around 11am, the butterflies started becoming more active and this female Broad-bodied Chaser perched nicely alongside the track.

I thus headed towards the meadow where I've seen fritillaries on previous visits but was stopped in my tracks when another dragonfly landed right beside me.  I didn't have a clue what it was but knew it was something I'd never seen before and it too sat still for plenty of photo's, allowing me to identify it once I got home as Green-eyed Hooktail.

As if a lifer wasn't enough, I then rounded a corner only to find my second ever Common Clubtail also sitting on the path.

Of course, there were some great butterflies around too but, since I took so many photo's of them, I'll save them for the next post.

Where's wally?

The Wallcreeper which was found five years ago is back!  Or at least it was.  I went today to try and see it but it was not to be found, and indeed hasn't been observed since yesterday lunchtime, with a rather ominous Peregrine sitting atop its rock instead.  Still, a Dipper and three adult Caspian Gulls along the Meuse were nice consolation year ticks, as was a male Firecrest I found feeding in my local park this morning.  The Wallcreeper was only my second twitch of the weekend, however, since an adult male Dusky Thrush was found in north-eastern Belgium late on New Year's Day!  It has received hundred of admirers since and, yesterday, I joined the crowds to get my first lifer of the year and 315th species in Belgium.  It stayed around 100m away in a fenced enclosure so there was no question of me getting any picture of it but the professionals with the huge lenses did manage a decent shot or two.  What a gorgeous thrush; the yellowish wash to the face and throat contrasting with the white belly was something I wasn't expecting since it's not shown well in any of my field guides.  Who would have thought I'd be starting off 2020, the year of the Bullfinch as chosen by Vogelbescherming Vlaanderen, the Flemish bird-protection association, with a lifer?

Purple streak

I've made two unsuccesful attempts this month to try to find my lifer High Brown Fritillary in the south of Belgium.  On the first attempt, in the province of Namur, I got a brief look at the elusive Lesser Purple Emperor instead.  Two days ago, it was this Purple Hairstreak at a nature reserve in Belgian Luxembourg which more than made up for not connecting with my target species.  Purple Hairstreak is not particularly uncommon and quite widespread but notoriously difficult to observe since its spends most of its life at the top of mature oak trees, rarely descending to ground level.  I knew it was the first I'd seen in a long time but, looking back at my records, I was amazed to discover my only other sighting in Belgium was EXACTLY ten years before, on 29 Jul 2009!  The only other naturalising I've done of late was some dragonfly photography in Brussels, where this Red-veined Darter, a recent coloniser from the Mediterranean, seemed very much at home thanks to the all-time high of 40°C we reached last week.

More Belgian butterflies

Whilst photographing the Weaver's Fritillaries, I noticed several of them feeding on this patch of flowers so I sat down and waited.  Of course, once I was ready and waiting for them, no more fritillaries came but this Pearly Heath did oblige.  During another, short walk in the province of Namur, I got to see my second ever Lesser Purple Emperor.  It only descended ever so briefly from the treetops so I wasn't quick enough to get a picture but this time it was the beautiful, summer form of the Map Butterfly which decided to cooperate instead.

Third time lucky

Having found my first Silver-washed Fritillary in Brussels, I decided to try my luck again with Weaver's Fritillary, a species I'd never seen in Belgium.  My previous two trips to their stronghold near Couvin in the south of Belgium were unsuccessful, the first being rained out, and the second, on 1 June, must have been right at the end of the flight period of the first generation since I didn't find any.  By the end of June, however, the summer generation were on the wing, so I headed back to Dourbes nature reserve and, this time, found plenty of them.

On the way there, I'd already seen some Marbled and Silver-washed Fritillaries and, while photographing the numerous Weaver's, I noticed another large fritillary flying around, one of which eventually landed briefly on a thistle, allowing me to identify it as Dark-Green.

Four fritillary species in one day is pretty exceptional but even more impressive was the fact that, of the fifteen species of butterfly I recorded, Swallowtail was the only one I also saw on 1 June, all the other species being different, with an obvious shift from blues and smaller species to fritillaries and other large butterflies.  That's a complete change in the composition of the butterfly community within just four weeks!  Perhaps the biggest surprise of all, though, was finding this beautiful Black Hairstreak.

Adonis' revenge

Since my last visit was rained off, I made another trip to the south of Belgium this past weekend in the hope of seeing some more butterflies.  This time, I was more successful and managed to identify 14 species, including this beautiful Adonis Blue, which I've only seen once before in Belgium.  It is a recent coloniser from the south and still restricted to just a handful of locations in the very south of the country.  I also got to photograph the similarly rare Red-underwing Skipper, and added a few birds to my year list, including Melodious and Marsh Warblers, plus Spotted Flycatcher.  The most exciting encounter of the day, however, was with a mother Wild Boar and her seven or so piglets which were walking quietly along the trail until they saw me, then skirted around me through the undergrowth before rejoining the trail, with the mother turning round to give me a disparaging look for getting in their way!

Dingy downpour

Today, I tried some butterflying at Dourbes nature reserve, to the north of Couvin, but the weather forecast was totally wrong so I arrived to overcast skies and lots of showers; the worst conditions for observing butterflies!  A singing Turtle Dove was a nice surprise and I thought that was going to have to be my consolation for the lack of butterfly activity.  Eventually, though, the sun managed to break through the clouds for just twenty minutes or so, but that was enough for a few butterflies to become active, including this unflatteringly named Dingy Skipper.  I ended the day with just five species of butterfly before the heavens opened and I got drenched walking back to the train station.  One can't complain, though, when one of them is a fritillary, my first of the year, and allows you to get a picture like this.

Heath Fritillary