I haven’t participated in Fun Monday in a while, but when I saw that Lisa asked for a Bird Show and Tell as one of her options, I had to participate. Thomas and I spotted a few new birds for our yearly bird list while we were in Belgium last month.  These were all shot in various parks around Brussels.

Here’s some of my favorites:

Coot

This is a Eurasian Coot. He was hard to photograph because he’s so dark, but he had a black body with a red eye. The white shield on his head looked more smooth, than like feathers. We also saw some baby coots (plain gray and fuzzy), and a nest (a pile of sticks in the middle of a lake).

Egyptian Goose

This is an Egyptian Goose. He had beautiful colors. You can’t see in this shot, but he had a bright green under his wings. We saw these, and some goslings, at the same lakes as we saw the Coots.

Eurasian Magpie

I wish I got a better shot of this guy because he was really beautiful. This is a Eurasian Magpie. They seemed as common as a Robin or Blue Jay is in the US, but a little bit bigger.

Moorhen

This is a Common Moorhen. We watched a male and female (not as colorful) eat algae in the water. Again, he was hard to photograph because he was so dark, but his feet are bright yellow, and his beak is red and yellow.  It kind of reminds me of candy corn.

Parrot

And finally, I was very excited to see this bird in the wild. There was a flock of them in a tree in a park. It’s a Rose-ringed Parakeet.  I have never seen a wild parrot before, but these were very pretty.

If you’d like to see the rest of the bird photos we took in Belgium, they’re posted on Flickr:

Related posts:

  1. Backyard Bird Count Completed
  2. Fun Monday: Show your Apron
  3. The Great Backyard Bird Count
  4. Bird Class Bookmark