Belgium and France
Day 2
Having rested well and after eating a healthy continental breakfast we headed slowly back towards Calais for the train home, stopping of at 3 sites on the way to do more birding.
- Top of the list was a visit to a reserve on the outskirts of Ghent where Penduline Tits had been seen in the last couple of days. It wasn't long before we got our reward with smashing views of 2 of them in the bulrushes by the pond. All we had to do was to sit back and enjoy the situation as the tits went about their business. A local birder informed us that up to 10 of this species were around but, with time against us, we left after 30 minutes or so to get to our next stop en route to Calais. After near misses last year in the UK at Dungeness and Bedford it was nice to finally see this very stylish bird - my second "lifer" of the trip after yesterday's Wall Creeper.
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| Penduline Tit Library picture |
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| Penduline Tit Library picture |
- Next stop was on the outskirts of Blankenberge (Uitkerkse Polder) where one of our target bird species, the White-fronted Geese was present in the thousands. Wherever we went there were large flocks of them. We spent the next couple of hours looking through these flocks for our second target species, the Red-breasted Goose, but try as we may we could not find one. It was a delightful time, with birds a plenty and a habitat reminiscent of Holland and Norfolk. None of us had ever seen so many "white fronts" assembled in one place at the same time.
White Fronted Goose
Library picture
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| White Fronted Geese Library picture |
- There was just enough time to get to Platier d'Oye on the outskirts of Calais where we didn't see the Snow Buntings we hoped for but, even better, we were lucky enough to come across 8 Shore Larks moving to our right across the sands between us and the sea, Again 8 birds was more than any of us had ever seen together in a group before.
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| Shore Lark Library picture |
Our luck held out, even stretching to include the travel arrangements, when we benefitted from an earlier train through the tunnel so that I arrived home an hour early at 21.00.
Another amazing day to conclude another memorable trip across the channel to northern France/Belgium.
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