Northern night's

Last night, I added the first new species to my Belgian list since last September's Siberian Stonechat! 
This time, it was a heard-only Thrush Nightingale which was only reported a few days ago but has apparently been around for a couple of weeks.  It was only giving sporadic bursts of half-hearted song until I left just after 9pm but then really got going according to those who stayed later.  

Photo-birding

Over the weekend, I took part in the first-ever Brussels edition of iNaturalist's City Nature Challenge.  The idea is to make as many documented observations of plants and animals as possible and Brussels is the only city in Belgium participating this year.  I decided to do my regular route around my Brussels patch but it was quite a challenge switching from my usual routine of trying to see things to trying to photograph them all, with common but skulky species such as Wren taking up much more time than I would usually spend on them.  In the end, I managed to photograph 38 species (31 birds, 3 butterflies, 2 mammals, 1 plant and 1 snail), including my first Swifts of the year which appeared over my balcony on Sunday morning.

Back to business

I finally managed to get back to my Brussels patch this morning, finding the first Blackcap of the year for the reserve as well as a Long-tailed Tit nest!  Butterflies were on the wing and I saw at least four species; Brimstone, Small White, Peacock plus this Red Admiral.

Tracking a familiar call in the forest, I managed to locate a Middle Spotted Woodpecker, while this Water Rail was sitting in an opening in the reeds and preening itself, allowing for unusually prolonged views of this super secretive skulker.

King of the cloister

Health issues have prevented me from doing anything other than birding from my balcony since I went to Texel so I thought I'd write a short post introducing my Brussels patch. 
Roodklooster/Rouge-Cloître is a former abbey with several lakes and ponds bordering the Sonian Forest on the south-eastern edge of Brussels.  As a result, it has a nice mixture of water and woodland birds with my regular visits there usually providing around 40 species, depending on the time of year.  My day record currently stands at 56 species seen/heard on 29 October 2022.  I am also the observer with the most bird species recorded within the reserve as shown on bru.waarnemingen, the local equivalent of eBird.  This list, however, excludes exotics plus a flew species I have recorded from within the reserve but which were just outside the boundaries, so my actual list totals 118 species, the latest addition being European Stonechat from last October.  I first visited it in May 1999, getting to see a pair of displaying Black Woodpeckers chasing each other around a tree-trunk in the nearby forest, something that I've never been lucky enough to see again in the 26 years I've been going there!  Most years, I start the year with a resolution to visit once a month, but other things get in the way and it ends up being considerably less, focussing especially on the spring and autumn migration periods.  Nevertheless, it is usually the first place I go at the start of each year to get my year list off to a decent start, with this year's January visit getting me 39 species, including a drumming Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and a Cetti's Warbler, which is a recent arrival and still extremely rare in Brussels.  Finally, it is on one of the main approach routes to Brussels airport, so there is a good chance you'll see it from the air if you are flying into Brussels.

Bird of the century?

The very next day after me prematurely proclaiming the Moussier's Redstart, which, by the way, is still there, to be my potential bird of the year, all hell broke lose.  Proclaimed to be the rarest bird ever to be found in The Netherlands and the biggest rarity of the millennium, the subadult male Spectacled Eider discovered amongst Common Eiders on the eastern side of Texel was not on anyone's radar and everybody's initial reaction was that it had to be a hoax or an escaped bird.  There are just a handful of winter records way up inside the Arctic Circle, along the northern coast of Norway and off of Svalbard, and only a couple along the Pacific coast of America.  In fact, it's wintering grounds were completely unknown until the entire population was discovered amongst holes in the pack ice of the northern Bering Sea in the mid-nineties.  Frustratingly, the Texel bird was discovered the day before I flew to Malta, so a tense few days ensued wondering whether it would stay and whether or not I might have to cut short my winter break in the sun.  It seemed to be settled, however, and faithful to a short stretch of coast with rich feeding grounds, where it was very successful in catching mussels, starfish and crabs.  I finally got to see it on day 25 of its legendary (and ongoing) stay, joining the crowds of birders from all over Europe who have made a trip to Texel for this special bird you would normally have to go all the way to Alaska to see.

2024 review bis

2024 was not just about the birds since I finally added two long-wanted butterfly species to my Belgian list, namely Poplar Admiral and Cranberry Fritillary.  That takes my Belgian butterfly list to 84 of the 90 or so regularly-occurring species, 82 of which I have photographed.  A trip to Berlin also got me the extinct-in-Belgium Large Chequered Skipper, and my first visit to Corsica got me another 5 new species; Bath White, Cardinal, the endemics Corsican Wall Brown and Corsican Small Heath, plus a brief glimpse of a Nettle-tree Butterfly.  My 9th new butterfly species of the year were some skippers I photographed in Bourg-St-Maurice in September which have been identified as Oberthür's Grizzled Skipper, one of the species I still need to find in Belgium, where it is extremely rare and localised.

My expedition to the Hautes Fagnes for Cranberry Fritillary also got me my first Spearhead Bluet/Northern Damselfly, taking me to 40 species of odonata in Belgium, and I added Southern Skimmer, a species I'd only seen in Israel before, to my European list.

2024 review

It's a month late thanks mainly to the unexpected Moussier's Redstart, which kicked off my 2025 list in style, but here is my review of 2024, starting with the monthly bird highlights (lifers in CAPS).

January - Bittern (West Flanders); a visiting birder wanted to see Bittern so I took him to the best place I know, hoping we might get to see one.  Our first view was of a distant bird sitting in a waterlogged field but, later on, it or another appeared right in front of the hide and started blowing bubbles in the water to attract fish.  Crazy, prolonged views of this unusual behaviour ensued so my visitor was thrilled.

February - Black Woodpecker (Brussels); Black Woodpecker is always difficult to see in Brussels so I was happy to locate a female by her calls.  She was perched on a treetrunk and, while I was watching her, a Green Woodpecker, climbed up the same tree and stopped just below her!

March - Common Crane (Brussels); with prolonged easterlies pushing Cranes over Brussels and after several near misses, I finally managed to spot a migrating group of around 70 from my balcony.

April - HERMIT WARBLER (Eugene, OR); the main target of my US trip, I finally saw one amongst a crazy fall of 100+ warblers on my last morning in Oregon before flying home.

May - Savi's Warbler (Uitkerkse Polders); one seen singing while guiding was the first I have seen in Belgium, having only heard it before.

June - CORSICAN NUTHATCH (Corsica); a morning with a local birdguide was successful in finding all three of my target species during a short, last-minute getaway.

July - Raven (Namur and Antwerp); a noisy family at close range during a butterfly trip in Namur, with another 1 or 2 heard over Kalmthout Heath, where it is considerably rarer.

August - Hen Harrier (Brussels); autumn migration got underway early with a 2nd-year male passing over my balcony together with a female Marsh Harrier.

September - Siberian Stonechat (Ostend); a twitch to the immature showing extremely well at the coast and my first in Belgium.

October - Rose-coloured Starling (Texel); another twitch to the nice, pink adult which spent several months in a Den Burg garden.

November - Tawny Owl (Brussels); one heard twice from my living room was very unexpected since they have never been recorded in my neighbouring park (and I have listened for them many times).  Presumably a young bird dispersing from the nearby forest, it was not heard again.

December - Red-necked Grebe (Amsterdam); always nice to see, this overwintering bird was easy to find in the suburbs of Amsterdam.

I thus ended the year with a total of 409 species, 221 of which were in Europe and 163 in Belgium.

I got 12 lifers during the year (9 in the US and 3 in Corsica), with Ross's Goose and Siberian Stonechat being my only Belgian ticks.  The Ross's Geese were not only new for me but for all Belgian birders, being the first proven-wild birds accepted to the Belgian list.  My balcony list increased by three species (Common Crane, Hen Harrier and the heard-only Tawny Owl) to 80 species, which is pretty impressive for the centre of Brussels. 
Whilst the Hermit Warbler and Corsican Nuthatch were the main targets of their respective trips, I think my bird of the year has to be the adult Rose-coloured Starling I went all the way to Texel to twitch since I had only ever seen a drab juvenile some 26 years previously!