Return leg - Plains of La Serena, Monfrague, Villafafila. Imperial Eagle mobbing Great Bustards, Montagues Harrier & Sandgrouse.

17th - 21st March La Serena, Monfrague & Villafafila

On the return journey back up through Western Spain now and have to say at the outset that it's good to have a travelling companion in the shape of Mark along for the last few legs. Maybe something else to point out at the outset is that the moment we headed into inland Spain the weather and the light deteriorated vastly! I've done my best with the pics without taking away the true nature of the conditions (its very obviously still winter in the middle of Spain!)


Our first destination, the plains of  La Serena is a huge area of largely untouched 'steppe' land and with a total area of 1025 sq miles it is the largest piece of uncultivated land in Western Europe.



The Plains of La Serena

The Plains of La Serena

 A wild and awe inspiring place but I suspect in the middle of Summer it'll be unbearably hot and this river, one of the main water sources in the area will almost certainly run dry.

Rio Guadalefra, La Serena

Quite rocky in parts too with some strange looking lichen covered outcrops

....there's that same grey sky again and that same strange bloke in my van!



Great Bustards, La Serena, 17/03/15

Yep, a big place and some equally big birds. This is one of the best places in Spain for seeing Great and Little Bustards and we got an eyeful of both.

Shame the light was so dismal for the Great Bustards because they'd all just about got into breeding plumage - check out the 'tash on the prancing one!

This Little Bustard was one of 2 males that were flying around together and calling ...chasing each other maybe? We concluded that it must have been some kind of territorial spat. The only pics I've ever managed of flying Bustards anyway!


Little Bustard, La Serena, 18/03/15

 .... easier to photograph on the ground but even though these nicely posed males look distinctive it wasn't until we stopped the car and scanned the terrain that we saw them plus 30 or so of the much drabber females.

Little Bustards, La Serena, 17/03/15

This is a rubbish pic of a flock of 20 or so Great Bustards taking off. They were obviously agitated and it takes a lot to bother these giant 'turkey sized' birds but worried they were and with good reason.....



flushed Great Bustards

Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, La Serena, 18/03/15

In the distance we saw the culprit - juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle lording it over the plains and looking very menacing! It's a a way off in this pic but you can clearly see it looking down on those Turkeys! Like Golden Eagles, Imperial Eagles will take young goats so a Great Bustard .. why not?

We watched in awe as this monster cruised above both us and the Bustards. With a global population of circa 350 breeding pairs  this is one of the world's rarest eagles - more info here, and although I'd spotted one of the breeding individuals at Donana (easy enough as they have scopes trained on the nearest ones), to stumble across one in a more wild environment was just awesome. This young bird came a bit closer and afforded some great views and half decent pics ...

Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, La Serena, 18/03/15



Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, La Serena, 18/03/15

Juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle, La Serena, 18/03/15

Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15

That was definitely the stand out moment of the trip to La Serena. You don't see Imperial Eagles or Great Bustards every day but to see some dangerous interaction between the 2 was truly memorable but that wasn't all that this remarkable place had to offer. The day before, we had our first good views of Montagues Harriers, a female and 2 males and one of them put on a very good hunting show...


Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15



Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15

Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15

Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15

Male Montague's Harrier, La Serena, 17/03/15

Black Bellied Sandgrouse, La Serena, 18/03/15

Nearby nr the small town of Campanario, we had both Black Bellied and Pin Tailed Sandgrouse flying over at regular intervals ...

Unfamiliar to most casual birdwatchers, Sandgrouse, as the name suggests are creatures of dry and dusty plains, deserts and other arid / semi arid parts of the world. Strong and fast fliers, as they have to be in order to seek out watering holes which can be many miles away from their nests, adult birds have the unique ability to store water in their belly feathers which they then use to 'drip feed' young chicks.




Pin Tailed Sandgrouse, La Serena, 18/03/15



Other good birds here included a pair of Bonellis Eagle, Black Stork, Lesser Kestrel, Pallid Swift, 2 Egyptian Vultures and lots of Calandra Larks 

Calandra Lark, La Serena, 17/03/15



  



Monfrague

A faulty memory card did for all my bird pics from Monfrague but if I can get it fixed the 8 or so Black Vultures we saw here should be worth the effort. In truth I'm not a huge fan (too many tourists) and I did a piece on the place last time I was here



Villafafila, 21/03/15

With more bad weather forecasted (including heavy snow) it was time to start putting in some miles if we were to get anything at all out of the Pyrenees, but not before a return trip to Villafafila, a series of lagoons set in steppe land nr Zamora (Castilla y Leon).










Dense freezing fog did for any meaningful exploring last time around and the elements weren't much better this time ... grey skies and a howling North-easterly wind. It certainly wasn't sunny Spain!

Villafafila, 21/03/15

Finding shelter, hats & gloves and hot tea was the order of the day for what turned out to be the last major birding site before we crossed back into France. Man it was cold! Got some good birds here though including 27 Great Bustards (distant), 2 Merlin, 4 Hen Harriers, c400 Avocet, c40 Ruff, c250 Black T Godwits, 2 Golden Plover, 1 Northern Wheatear, 6 Spanish Sparrows and plenty of ducks including 12 Wigeon and a curious looking female Tufted Duck that was ringed on its bill as well as its leg ...not a Ring Necked Duck because it has a tuft but maybe some kind of hybrid that's been marked out? It was the only decent bird pic I took such were the conditions!



Tufted / Ring Necked hybrid, Villafafila, 21/03/15





Tufted / Ring Necked hybrid, Villafafila, 21/03/15



A curious place with much dilapidation. Villafafila itself was pure 'shanty town' and there was a whole deserted village nr the reserve as well as several of the multi storey mud and straw pigeon coops that the area is renowned for.

Multi storey pigeon coop, Villafafila





Villafafila through a bird hide!

Sadly, poor weather and worse forecast cut short our stay on the border so we 'snuck' across the Pyrenees in a hasty fashion. In the snow nr the ski resort of Formigal, both of us bothered by the glare from the white stuff and slightly anxious about the state of the road, we had a solitary Alpine Swift, House Martins and a flock of Goldfinch around the ski lifts and added a couple of new species for the trip - 40 or so Alpine Choughs and 5 Snow Bunting - all from the van which we were both reluctant to stop and try for pics!

Over the Pyrenees nr Formigal, 23/03/15

Back into France, the weather a little better but you know how it is at the end of a long trip and after stacks of driving; Our combined energy levels were low and home was calling. We did a few sites in the French Pyrenees, Mark had a lifer in the shape of Black Woodpecker in La Foret de Cardeilhac plus some probable Ortolan Buntings, 6 Brambling (another new species for the trip) at Gresigne and 6 Dipper in the Valle D'Ossau were the stand outs, and then a total of 6 Hen Harriers in miserable weather at Narse de Lascols an added bonus with the latter site (a raised peat bog in the Auvergne) worthy of further exploration in the future.

So the trip ended with a flurry of new birds and more than a flurry of snow! 210 bird species in total which I'll list in my next post along with some pics that I couldn't fit into previous posts.





100s of Eagles & Kites crossing the Straits of Gibraltar,scorching hot around Barbate, a rare Vulture and Spanish Festoons

Its been a long journey and sometimes I wonder just why I'm putting myself out here. Hardships? Not many, I have everything I need to keep body and soul together. Its been a bit lonely and I'm travel weary but that goes with the territory when you're traversing foreign lands looking for wildlife. I think ... I probably think too much! In a matter of weeks I'll be back in the fray, doing a job I love, seeing my family again and making music again with my various musical amigos and, for the last 2 weeks of my trip my best mate Mark is popping over for a share of the migration spoils, so plenty to look forward to.

Meanwhile I'm at the southernmost tip of Europe and witnessing the annual migration of returning birds from Africa and I'm perfectly positioned!

....and when the winds are right and you're in the right place at the right time it all becomes obvious why I put myself out there....


Short Toed Eagle, over the straits of Gibralter, 2nd March 2015

These are just 2 of about 150 Short Toed Eagles that decided to sail over the Straits of Gibralter whilst I was having a 'café con leche' on the sea front at Getares. Bloody good job I had my camera to hand!



Short Toed Eagle, over the straits of Gibralter, 2nd March 2015

Proper eagles are Short Toed .. don't they just look the part in every way?  In their wake came scores of Black Kites, the odd Booted Eagle and several Common Buzzards.



Black Kite over the sea at Carnero, Nr Gibralter



Black Kites in formation!



 

Gibralter from Punta Carnero, 2/03/15

 

 

Egyptian Vulture, Tarifa, 2nd March 2015

All it took was a slight shift in the wind to WSW and they were over. Earlier in the day, before the temperature rose and mist was still hanging over the mountains, I was up one of the high valleys behind Tarifa. There had been a modest passage of Barn Swallows, Chaffinches and Griffon Vultures then a medium sized raptor I first took to be a Booted Eagle floated by - it was some distance off and the light was poor, but I took some record shots anyway. Good job - turned out to be an Egyptian Vulture! A scarce bird anywhere in Spain these days.


Egyptian Vulture, Tarifa, 2nd March 2015



Alpine Swift, Tarifa, 2nd March 2015

In the same few moments I also had a Black Stork and 70 other distant storks that were probably White and then out of the mist an Alpine Swift decided to speed by. It was nearly past me by the time I got my camera on it but reckoned any shot would be worthwhile.

Awesome bird to have coming straight at you out of the mist of a mountain I can tell you! Twice as big as our Common Swifts with a wing span of nearly 60cm no wonder I thought it was a Peregrine coming at me at first!







Black Stork, Tarifa, 2nd March 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



An estimated half a billion birds migrate across this narrow stretch of water from Africa every Spring and to see just a fraction of those, whether that's a sky full of Eagles and Kites, estuaries full of waders or solitary wanderers, is totally fascinating to me and for many birders and wildlife watchers alike 'migration time' is why we get up at the crack of dawn, brave the elements and go up and down tracks and paths most sensible people would frown at!


March 2nd, that was some day, the best so far for migration. I also had 3 Booted Eagles, 6 Common Buzzard, a single Pallid Swift and several hundred Barn Swallows all drifting North.










A couple of days later in windless and 25c heat I had 11 more Pallid Swifts north very high up and an equally high and passing male Marsh Harrier.

High flying migrating Marsh Harrier, nr Manzanete, 4/03/15

There was a nice male Northern Wheatear at Barbate along with 10 or so Caspian Terns and the usual common waders, whilst at a very dry Le Janda I had the biggest flock of Calandra Larks I've ever seen (about 70 in one field) and another new migrant a single Purple Heron in amongst the Greys.

 Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps have been singing purposefully now for the past week or so and there are new butterflies and flowers emerging each and every day.

Northern Wheatear, Barbate, 4th March 2015

Purple Heron, Le Janda, 4th March 2015
 

This little Owl brought some amusement, to us both by the looks of things, on a very hot day around Barbate....

Little Owl, nr Barbate

Little Owl, nr Barbate



Wall Brown, Barbate, 4/03/15

I'm beginning to notice Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps singing now and there are new butterflies and flowers emerging each and every day.

The Spanish Festoons were gorgeous little things I'd never seen before, hardly surprising I suppose - the last time I was in Spain in the spring I wasn't that bothered about butterflies or flowers come to that.

There was a Swallowtail butterfly in the same vicinity too but it eluded my lens!

Spanish Festoon, Barbate, 04/03/15



unidentified shrub sp, nr Barbate

I don't know what this shrub is but its beautiful and seems to drape itself around the many stands of Prickly Pear cacti that in turn attracts many wasps and flies and the odd Grasshopper! I'm no expert on these things but thinking just a common Field Grasshopper?



Grasshopper species, Barbate

On the evening of the 4th March some more very strong winds sprung up, blowing this time from the East and forecast that way for the next 4 days with gusts of up to 70mph! Time for me to head off to a calmer area of Spain ... I'm off to Donana!