I'm off to bed now. Good night!

Sounds wonderful!
I wish I had such a nice place to go to and watch some birds. Well, there is a lake not too far from here but the birds there are not so exciting.
It sounds like a good habit to go to a preserve daily! Unfortunately, I don't have time for that. Especially in winter it's difficult because it's dark when I leave w*rk. But maybe I should go to the lake more often and I'll start finding the seagulls and mallards more interesting...

Katja, yes they are here all year round. I see one or two every time I go to the abbey. They are working on the bank where the kingfisher's nest is, so I don't know what impact this disturbance will have on the kingfishers. It's out of the ordinary that they sit so close to the side where ppl pass by, I usually see them on the opposite side.
The abbey is about 5 min from me with the bicycle and I go there whenever I feel like it, in summer it was on a daily basis. I was interested in the insects that I found there. This year there was also a formidable colony of Argiope bruennichi a orb spider. Out of nothing there suddenly were hundreds of them, highly unusual for them to be here.
I took Howwa's habit of going to a preserve daily over and it's most interesting to watch the seasons and what it brings.

I'd love to do that. Kingfishers are my 2nd favourite birds (1st are owls). Are they there all year? Is the abbey in Leuven?

Katja, come for a visit, they breed at the abbey

Sounds interesting, Ceri!
I have never seen a kingfisher in Europe. Would love to see one...

Every year waterbirds are counted for 6 months and the first count was this saturday and the place I go to is at the Abbey. Actually it is Werner who counts, he knows birds very well, I just go with and make sure he doesn't miss. Of course other ppl may join if they want to.
It is very quiet still and we saw only 15 different species, remember it is only waterbirds. We had lovely sightings of a kingfisher Alcedo atthis who sat in a tree over the water not far from us.
There is a family of swans Cygnus olor and one of the yuveniles is still brown, but slowly it is losing the brown feathers. It's funny to see them swim, all white and the one is brown.
I had a sms from another old africammer, Kurt, who went looking for migrating raptors. He saw 20 buzzards.

*** light rain - rain -rain - not a good day for pictures- so ill watch the b.c. lions football at 1.00 go lions go lol ***