Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus) in Belgium

Yesterday we (Frank van Duivenvoorde, Luuk Punt en me) left for Belgium. A couple of days ago, a Dusky Thrush was reported in Erezée in the middle of the Belgian Ardennes. The bird stayed, and beautiful pictures arrived also in the Netherlands. When Luuk called me if I wanted to join, I didn't hesitate: The Dusky Thrush was a lifer, views were apparently really good and the Ardennes is a very nice area. So I cancelled my other appointments (sorry for that, my friends!) and went to bed, to catch some hours of sleep. We left at 5.20 a.m. for a long drive to Erezée. A major part of it, we had to drive in the dark, temperatures were way below zero. It was years ago, since we had these arctic circumstances in this part of Europe. Especially when we entered the snow covered parts of Belgium, the temperature dropped. Our record was -16 °C. There was one luck however, there were no clouds and no wind. When we saw the sun rise, it was actually a quite pleasant day.

When we arrived in Erezée, there were already about 20 - 30 people present. Different languages were spoken, French, Dutch, German and English: We weren't the only twitchers that wanted to see this species. Many of our Dutch birdwatcher friends had also left for Erezée. Ridiculous if you think of it... without knowing of each other we met in a small place in the Dutch Ardennes. A place that probably no-one had heard of before... but there we stood, waiting for a lost bird to arrive in -15 °C.

It had chosen a small orchard with appletrees. One old tree had still a lot of apples on its branches. And about 15 Blackbirds, one Fieldfare, a few Starlings and one Mistle Thrush were feasting on these apples. Especially on the ones that were fallen below the tree.

Then all of a sudden the Dusky Thrush Turdus eunomus arrived. We had magnificent views on this beautiful bird, that originates from central Siberia and eastwards. Dusky thrushes are rare vagrants in Europe. Apparently it was the fifth record for Belgium, but the first since 1956!

The combination of very fine plumage elements made this a very nice bird. The wing pattern, the double breastband, the diamondshaped markings on the sides, it's supercilium, all fantastic! All these different tones of brown colours, wow! The crowd stayed calm, the bird showed off, the snow,... a small vacation in Belgium. All in all it was a fantastic twitch.

We drove through the Ardennes in the direction of the Dutch Province of Limburg. Near Herstal we saw the reported Iceland Gull Larus glaucoides. Inland Iceland gulls are rare and we had some short but good views. After a few minutes the bird flew off together with a couple of thousand Black Headed Gulls. We are quite used to large amounts of gulls, but this was really enormous.

The rest of the day we spent birding and enjoying the nice scenery in the Dutch Province of Limburg. We dipped out on the Eurasian Eagle Owl Bubo bubo on the Pietersberg near Maastricht. But had some magnificent hours at the Hamster nature reserve near Sibbe. This is a large agricultural reserve. Made for the last Dutch wild Hamsters Cricetus cricetus, but many other animals can benefit from this protected area as well. We saw hundreds of Yellowhammers, Linnets, Common Wood pigeons, Jackdaws and Rooks and in betweens these groups we found about 15 Corn Buntings Miliaria calandra. A speciality from this area, they have become really rare in the rest of the Netherlands. A few Northern harriers and splendid views of a hunting Merlin.



All locations and pictures of the birds can be found through http://waarneming.nl/ and http://waarnemingen.be/



A last picture from our very nice day. The scenery from a typical "Holle weg" (= hollow road) in Sibbe in Limburg. Frank and Luuk ahead of me walking towards the car.

European Scops Owl (Otus scops)

It was 11.00 p.m. when I got the first telephone call, I didn't even noticed it. The second and third call came by 11.15 p.m. The calls were made by two brothers and great friends. I wasn't very disturbed since they are able to call me for almost any small thing in the middle of the night. Probably a mouse, or a young Tawny owl or maybe they were playing some kind of practical joke on me... I was tired and decided to call them back tomorrow. Then, when I got the fourth call by another birder (Rein), I knew things were serious. When I picked up the phone he told me there was a European Scops owl calling at only 10 kilometres from my home! Amazing, but was it really this species? And how did I get there?

I was suspicious: two years ago some of my friends made the classical mistake in identifying nocturnal nature sounds. They mistakenly took the sound of a Midwife toad Alytes obstetricans for an European Scops Owl. How could you mistaken the sound of an owl with that of a toad, I hear you think? Well, the sounds are very similar and I must admit there were also some extenuating circumstances:
-When they heard the sound, they just returned from a long night of birdwatching and were very tired,
-they weren't aware of a feral population of Midwife toads which was close to the location of the discovered sound, no excuse off course ;-)
-There were a couple of toads present. This made the sound look as if it was moving: One toad could be calling for a few minutes, fell quiet and another toad 10 meters away would start calling.
-They saw something flying (whatever it was, it probably wasn't a scops owl...)

The sighting fooled experienced Dutch birdwatchers, even people who had experience with both species (toad and owl) abroad, so be aware! The next day, the truth was revealed, when we arrived, we saw a nice midwife toad walking through the grass in the sandy dune, although it wasn't a Scops owl, I liked it anyway since I had never seen an adult Midwife toad before. I've heard (I'm not sure whether it is just rumours or whether it is really true), that there are apparently even Birdsound cd's with recordings of Midwife toads in stead of the Scops owl (the species they claim to have recorded), so even learning from cd's might give you the wrong ID. The picture is from that second day, photographer is Maarten Wielstra. If you want to learn more about confusingly similar animal sounds, read this interesting article:
Insect, Amphibian or Bird? British bird, 77, No. 3, March 1984
(link will only work for a week, after that period, you have to search for it in a library or subscribe to British Birds)

So what about this new sighting? News spread quickly and within a few minutes transport was arranged. I got another phone call, a sleepy voice at the other end of the line: "Hi, they called me out of bed, I'm putting on my clothes now and I'll be at your place as soon as possible. It was hard to explain to my girlfriend, she'll probably never understand it, but I was able to get her car anyway. Be ready!"
Then another phone call of a friend (Maarten) who was already at the spot: "Wouter, it's the real thing!!" he said. I could even hear the bird calling through the telephone. When we arrived, there were about 30 people present. Mainly local birdwatchers. It looked ridiculous: 30 people, mainly men, staring with their binoculars in the dark, talking with lowered voices and pointing with their microphones to a ...tree...
No pictures this time, but this is what we heard:
http://waarneming.nl/sound_details.php?id=850
A fantastic scops owl! Apparently the bird was already present since the 12th of May. Residents heard already for a couple of days some kind of alarm... So it's not only Midwife toads that can be confusing.

The next day there were a little more people than the 30 I described above... About 300 (!) people came to visit the Scops Owl:




The European Scops Owl breeds in Southern Europe, North Africa and parts of Asia. In the Netherlands there are about 7 previous records of which 3 were found dead and 2 were caught. This was only the second twitchable bird for the Netherlands, the last twitchable bird was already ten years ago, so it is still a true vagrant. However it is a species that's supposed to benefit from Global warming and it is thought to expand it's breeding territory northwards. So maybe we can expect this species more often in the oncoming years.