A short trip to southern Spain with Ed, Matt, Wes and Robin made for a
perfect break and my most enjoyable foreign excursion since Sri Lanka.
We had a great crowd and I welcomed the relief from taking thorough
notes to just simply enjoy the birds and sharpen judgement on distant
raptors. Indeed, raptors were our primary target and we enjoyed a couple
of days of spectacular movement, with 23rd seeing scores of
Booted Eagles,
Black Kites,
Honey-buzzards and
Griffon Vultures moving through, along with
Marsh Harrier, a couple of
Ospreys and a handful of
Egyptian Vultures,
Short-toed Eagles,
Black Storks and
Bee-eaters. On 24th, the majority of the movement we witnessed involved
Black Kites, with a strong 4-figure total logged by the other guys.
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| Egyptian Vulture |
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| Osprey |
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| Black Kite |
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| Honey-buzzard |
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| Black Kite swarm - though this doesn't come close to doing the spectacle justice |
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| two among a flock of Black Storks |
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| dark morph Booted Eagle |
We notched up 122 species on 22nd alone, when we visited some pools and saltpans around Donana and saw
Slender-billed and
Audouin's Gulls,
Caspian and
Gull-billed Terns,
Kentish Plover,
Curlew Sandpipers and
Little Stints. Some nice views of
Purple Swamphen,
Collared Pratincoles,
Roller,
Western Bonelli's and
Great Reed Warbler were had that day and I connected with my first
White-headed and
Marbled Ducks. A
Black-eared Wheatear shared a fence line with a hepatic
Cuckoo, a
Woodchat Shrike and a
Whinchat. Ed tracked down a displaying
Little Bustard and in the evening, some rolling green hills produced nice views of a graceful
Black-winged Kite as it hunted.
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| male Black-eared Wheatear |
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| hepatic female Cuckoo |
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| Gull-billed Tern |
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| squadron of Greater Flamingos |
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| male Kentish Plover |
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| adult Night-heron |
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| Slender-billed Gulls |
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| pair of Red-crested Pochards |
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| singing male Melodious Warbler |
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| drake White-headed Duck |
23rd saw us connect with one of my dream birds,
Lesser Kestrel,
something I've been long awaiting and which I'd not yet been able to
track down. That day we also visited a reintroduced Bald Ibis colony and
successfully found a couple of
Iberian Woodpeckers in the hills, along with a
Western Subalpine Warbler.
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| duff Bald Ibis |
Birds such as
Blue Rock Thrush, '
Spanish Wagtail',
Woodchat Shrike,
Melodious and
Sardinian Warbler,
Spanish Sparrow,
Zitting Cisticola,
Red-rumped Swallow,
Pallid Swift,
Montagu's Harrier,
White Stork,
Purple Heron,
Glossy Ibis,
Spotless Starling,
Serin,
Cirl Bunting,
Chough and
Hoopoe were features of the trip and we had encounters with both
Short-toed and
Calandra Lark.
Turtle Doves,
Corn Buntings and
Nightingales were common. The final day was memorable for finding a
Bonelli's Eagle nest below a flurry of
Alpine Swifts and
Crag Martins, and spotting a
Black Wheatear in a suitably rocky field.
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| we saw a handful of Short-toed Larks |
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| one of several Woodchat Shrikes |
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| Bonelli's Eagle on the nest, a fitting end to the trip! |
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| The dream team - from left: me, Ed, Matt, Robin and Wes |
My 140-strong species list for the trip in a rather loose taxonomic follows (lifers in bold):
Greylag Goose, Shelduck, Mallard,
Marbled Duck, Pochard, Red-crested Pochard,
White-headed Duck, Quail, Red-legged Partridge, Little Grebe, Great CrestedGrebe, Cory's Shearwater, Balearic Shearwater, Gannet, Cormorant, Night-heron, Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Grey Heron, Purple Heron, White Stork, Black Stork, Glossy Ibis, Spoonbill, Greater Flamingo, Osprey, Egyptian Vulture, Griffon Vulture, Short-toed Eagle,
Booted Eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Black Kite, Black-winged Kite, Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, Montagu's Harrier, Buzzard, Honey-buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Kestrel,
Lesser Kestrel, Hobby, Peregrine, Moorhen, Coot, Purple Swamphen, Little Bustard, Avocet, Stone-curlew, Black-winged Stilt, Collared Pratincole, Little Ringed Plover, Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Grey Plover, Sanderling, Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Green Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank, Bar-tailed Godwit, Black-headed Gull, Slender-billed Gull, Yellow-legged Gull, Audouin's Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Little Tern, Sandwich Tern, Caspian Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Rock Dove (feral), Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Turtle Dove, Cuckoo, Little Owl, Swift, Pallid Swift, Alpine Swift, Bee-eater, Roller, Hoopoe, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Iberian Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Crested Lark, Short-toed Lark, Calandra Lark, Crag Martin Sand Martin, Swallow, House Martin, Red-rumped Swallow, Tree Pipit, Yellow Wagtail, ('Spanish')White Wagtail, Wren, Nightingale, Robin, Redstart, Black Redstart, Whinchat, Stonechat, Blackbird, Blue Rock Thrush, Wheatear,
Black Wheatear, Black-eared Wheatear, Zitting Cisticola, Blackcap, Whitethroat, Sardinian Warbler, Western Subalpine Warbler, Cetti's Warbler, Great Reed Warbler, Melodious Warbler, Willow Warbler, Western Bonelli's Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Crested Tit, Short-toed Treecreeper, Woodchat Shrike, Jackdaw, Raven, Spotless Starling, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Spanish Sparrow, Chaffinch, Linnet, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Serin, Corn Bunting
