Bird spotters have recorded sightings of two birds that are extremely rare here in Belgium. A Hume's leaf warbler and a Pallas’s leaf warbler, birds that are native to Asiatic Russia, were spotted on Brussels Dutch-Medium Free University VUB’s Etterbeek Campus in the municipality of Elsene. One of the bird spotters that saw the birds is Janne Denecker. The discovery of the two birds comes just a few weeks ahead of the annual “Bird Census Weekend” that takes place each year during the last weekend of January.
Last Friday the psychology student and ornithologist Janne Denecker went for a walk around the campus during a break from revising for her exams. She had the surprise of the life when suddenly she spotted a Pallas's leaf warbler, a bird that breeds and spends the summer in Siberia and normally spends the winter in Southern China, in the bushes. "I have been bird spotting for a few months. When I filmed the bird, I didn’t realise that it is a rare bird. I was eventually able to identify it with after a bit of research and the help of real ornithologists”, Janne Denecker told the Brussels regional news platform Bruzz.
The sighting of such a rare bird caused something of a stir in bird watching circles and soon around 20 bird spotters had descended on the Etterbeek Campus. During their search for the Pallas's leaf warbler bird spotter Olivier Dupont found a bird that is even more rare, a Hume's leaf warbler. “This was the first time that that one had been spotted in Brussels”, Jenne Denecker told Bruzz.
The sightings have attacked numerous bird spotters to the campus and at the weekend many were able to photograph the birds.