On Monday 14 February 2022 Geert Spanoghe was doing a bird survey for the Belgian Atlas around Doel in Belgium. When driving in Prosperdorp, a small village dissected by the Dutch-Belgian border he saw a bird bathing at the site of the road. He identified the bird as a Song Sparrow Melospiza melodia, a very rare bird in Europe, but the second for Belgium. Lots of birders came to see it and it appeared the bird made short visits to the Netherlands too! The next day on 15 February the bird was still present and was seen feeding in Belgium and evetually visiting the Netherlands to sing, because he thought there was another Song Sparrow claming its territory!
I saw the bird on Wednesday 16 February both in Belgium and in the Netherlands too. The bird is apparently spending the winter there. Sometimes conflicts rose between Belgian and Dutch birders as the Belgians put lots of food on the Belgian site of the village, while some (but not all, I hasten to say) Dutch birders tape-lure it to the Netherlands with success. But with patience everyone should see the bird in his/her favourite country as it has a routine of visiting both countries on a daily basis.
The bird stayed till 20 March 2022. It was accepted as the second record for both Belgium and the Netherlands. The first for Belgium was a bird trapped at Sint-Laureins, Oost-Vlaanderen on 25 April 2004. The first for the Netherlands was at the Kabbelaarsbank, Goeree ZH on 30 April 2006. Song Sparrow is a rare vagrant from North-America and till 2022 there are 10 records in the UK (27 April 1959, 18 May 1964, 5 May 1970, 13 May 1971, 17 April 1979, 11 April 1989, 15 October 1994, 25 April 2004, 25 May 2018 and 9 April 2020), one in Norway (10 may 1975), Germany (7 April 2016), Spain (29 March 2013), Sweden (28 May 2010) and Switzerland (1 May 2010). Remarkedly, there are no records for Iceland, the Azores and Ireland (source: Tarsiger.com).
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