Raptor Silhouettes: the solutions

I’ve recently detected a growing unease among some birding factions on the Internet. Some have written to forums pleading for help, while others have gone straight to the point and have e-mailed me asking for the solution to the raptor silhouette competion available on this page at the BirdingInSpain.com main site.

I’m about to reveal the answers.

So if you want to have a go yourself without cheating follow the link and read no further…

If, however, you are stumped, and there’s no harm in admitting it because it was a difficult test and as far as I recall no-one has got 20 out of the 22, read on…

1. Honey Buzzard

2. Black-winged Kite

3. Red Kite

4. Osprey

5. Short-toed Eagle

6. Goshawk

7. Booted Eagle

8. Eleonora’s Falcon

9. Common Buzzard

10. Peregrine

11. Black Kite

12. Hen Harrier

13. Bonelli’s Eagle

14. Montagu’s Harrier

15. Golden Eagle

16. Egyptian Vulture

17. Marsh Harrier

18. Hobby

19. Sparrowhawk

20. Common Kestrel

21. Griffon Vulture

22. Lammergeier

Most difficulties were caused by numbers 2, 7, 8 and 12. Of course, true to the BirdingInSpain theme they are all raptors that can be seen in northeast Spain.

Did you enjoy it? Was it worth my time? Would someone like another more difficult/easier one?

I await your comments.

New digiscoping book by Spanish authors

Recently a brand new digiscoping book fell into my hands courtesy of Xavier Esteller of Swarovski Optik in Barcelona. It was written by various Spanish authors, all experts in this particular field of bird photography.

Digiscoping: una mirada de cerca

Its 216 pages are crammed with photos of birds, digiscoping instruments, techniques and computer screen images to take the reader through the whole process of digiscoping birds and other wildlife, through choosing the most suitable equipment, field technique, etc. to retouching and image optimization on the computer.

The English version was recently translated by John Muddeman, with my own humble contribution of two chapters also in there somehwere. Its hardback, glossy, in full colour and complete. An ideal buy for anyone embarked on the long and wondrous voyage of bird photography, and especially for those with an interest in digiscoping.

The afternoon after the day after

It was 5 o’clock in the afternoon and the car’s thermometer marked a more-than-warm 33ºC. What the heck was I doing out on the drylands of Lleida at this time of day? Magpies perched motionless and gasping under fig leaves, there were no bird calls or birdsong to guide me to my next subject, and I was out birding! Was that really a wise move?

Two days earlier I had been out and about in my plucky red Suzuki, guiding three birders from Scotland around the different drylands of Lleida and searching for their key species. By the time we reached the Alfés drylands we had already bagged a good number of the most important birds: a small flock of Little Bustards (often difficult to locate after the end of the breeding season), Rollers in double figures, Lesser Kestrels, a few Montagu’s Harriers, a Lesser Grey Shrike, 4 Black Wheatears, a couple of Black-eared Wheatears, and even 2 Black-bellied Sandgrouse (a species which I had put down as “possible, but unlikely”).

But the afternoon lull was having its effect and, despite my local knowledge and efforts, we had not set eyes on either the Pin-tailed Sandgrouse or the Red-necked Nightjar. To my great surprise we had only just managed to find a single flock of Calandra Larks, uncommittingly accompanied by three Short-toed Larks.

It had been different then. I was working, the morning cloud cover had kept us cool until well after midday, and I hadn’t just had a tiff with the wife.

So in comparison to the charged atmosphere at home the prospect of a little hot birding was almost inviting. I told myself I would also have the chance to look for the Red-necked Nightjar and the Pin-tailed Sandgrouse in the places where they should have been two days before, when it really counted. Although the clients who had already missed the birds would not thank me for e-mailing them “You know we dipped on Red-necked Nightjar and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse at Alfés? Well, this afternoon I went back and…..”, I would at least be able to satisfy my own curiosity, and also have some indication of whether or not it was worth coming back with the next birding folk.

I was about to give up on the nightjar when a movement caught my eye and I managed to focus on the bird gliding silently at grass height before landing beside some brushwood. Although I mentally marked the spot where it landed, I had no-one to show it to, so I returned to the car with mixed feelings. “Found it!”, yes, but also “Where were you two days ago?”.

I spent the next couple of hours making short surries from the air-conditioned car, and seeing nothing but the odd Thekla Lark or inactive Roller. Was this really the best way of spending the afternoon? Wouldn’t it have been better to kiss and make up? Sod it! It wasn’t me who was at fault!

The car had picked up a familiar coating of dust and mud by the time I finally found the Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. A single bird stretching its neck and peering at me from above a small field of brittle dry weeds.

Mission accomplished. Well, sort of. Now I had a ten-minute drive back home. Maybe just enough time to plan how best to say I was sorry to my dear wife.

Try the Bird Photo Quiz

Country: Switzerland. A fellow bird guide and friend, Beat Rüegger, has been gathering thousands of bird and plant photographs over the years to make a fantastic identification quiz, which goes by the name of Biofotoquiz. He’s the bird specialist while his wife, Florence, is the plant expert.

Together they have assembled an enormous amount of photographic information to make a web page by which it is possible to train yourself in bird (or plant) identification, choosing between the different levels (Beginner, Advanced or Expert), different systematic groups, or different habitats.

And then you can test yourself to see if you really do know what you think you do about bird and plant identification. Try the quiz at your level (or what you think is your level!) and see where you come on the ranking list.

Here’s what the authors say:

Biofotoquiz offers the opportunity to train your skill to identify plant and animal species. It includes

* a learn mode with three levels
* four quiz modes with ranking lists
* series of images for printing

At the moment there are training units with plants and birds with 7169 photos of 966 species in 99 series available.

http://www.bfq.ch/biofotoquiz/

Have fun!

Black Woodpecker

Black Woodpecker photo

Photo courtesy of Chris Hardingham

The Black Woodpecker flight call rang out above the noise of the torrent. Brian raised his binoculars just in time to focus on the bird before it disappeared from view into the forest of fir and pine.

“Typical! You take a party of birders half way up the mountains of Ordesa National Park and the bird turns up right next to the car park when you go down to look for Geoffrey Pringles’ damn pills!”

He crossed the wooden bridge over the torrent and started making his way to the van. Two middle-aged tourists crouched near the river bank caught his eye and beckoned him over. They spoke to him in English.

“Hello. You wouldn’t know what to do with this hedgehog, would you? It seems to be sick or injured. It’s breathing but hardly moving.”

Brian looked down at the hedgehog, which effectively seemed to be gently rocking from side to side. He was surprised: the Ordesa valley seemed a cold place for a hedgehog to survive the winter.

“I don’t think there’s much we can do. Just move it to a place where it can rest without coming to too much harm.”

“Not an easy beast to transport. I mean, apart from the spines hedgehogs are usually infested with fleas.”

“Hmm. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Brian made his way to the van, picked up Geoffrey Pringles’ pills from the glove compartment and then reached over and grabbed a fur-lined jacket slung over the back of a seat. He went back to the river bank and coaxed the hedgehog onto the jacket lining. One of the tourists looked at him rather bemused.

“I hope you weren’t planning to wear that jacket today!”

“Not even if it rains, ” Brian answered with a smile.

Brian carefully placed the hedgehog in a small, bushy area off the main path, rolled the jacket up with the lining inside, and crossed the torrent by the wooden bridge once more.

Although the clouds were closing in, the wind had picked up, and the temperature had dropped considerably in the last hour or so, Brian made no move to don the jacket. Instead he puffed his way up the steep path, winding upwards through innumerable hairpin bends, pausing briefly to catch his breath now and then and to spot a bird or two. As he got closer to the treeline he encountered small parties of Citril Finches, Crossbills and a Ring Ouzel hopping around a small, sheltered meadow.

The Black Woodpecker call echoed up from further down the valley, reminding him of his earlier exchange with Geoffrey Pringle, just after they had pulled up in the Park’s car park…

“Whenever I’ve seen Black Woodpecker at Ordesa it’s been along that path”, Brian had told Geoffrey Pringle, pointing to the left.

“Yes, that’s very interesting, but the information I have points us in the other direction, to the right”

“That paths very steep you know,” said Brian.

“Maybe. But that’s where I want us to go,” sentenced Geoffrey Pringle.

So Brian had had to lead the group towards the waterfall along the steepest path. Not an hour had passed, though, before Geoffrey Pringle had something else to say.

“I’m getting quite a headache. And I left my pills in the van.”

“We’ve come up a long way now Geoffrey. Do you really need them?”, asked Michael, Geoffrey Pringle’s closest companion.

“Yes I do. Perhaps Brian could go down and get them. What about it Brian? I’m sure you won’t mind, after all you are the fittest of the group. We’ll meet again at the waterfall.”

The wind was blowing and the air was decidedly chilly when the path evetually levelled off. Brian thrust one hand into a pocket and instinctively tightened his grip on the rolled up jacket with the other. When he reached the foot of the waterfall the group was dotted around seated on rocks, finishing off their packed lunches.

Geoffrey Pringle looked at him.

“Hello. The pills? And is that my jacket you’ve got there rolled into a ball ?”

“Oh yes! I’d almost forgotten I had it. I thought you’d be cold. Here you are.”

Hamsters and Red-necked Nightjars

That seems a rather unusual title for what is a photo of a Fritillary, but here is an extract from the chapter of the same name in the book “Flying over the Pyrenees, standing on the plains”.

From our position at the very top of Montsec we should have commanded spectacular views to the south, for miles and miles, over the sierras, the Ebro Valley steppes, and down to the mountains of Tarragona. And what did we have for our pains? Mist! And not even the single, damp Lusitanian Fritillary, which narrowly escaped trampling, was going to make up for it.

Fritillary 

Photo courtesy of Chris Hardingham.

Birding in Catalunya: something for the Catalans

Something I wrote last year, for any Catalan-speaking visitors there may be!

Escriure una petita introducció sobre l’observació dels ocells al Montsec? Com començar? No ho sabia. Així, un dia esplèndid de primavera vaig agafar els prismàtics i vaig fer una visita als camps, bosquets i cims airosos de Montsec, buscant inspiració en la seva solitud i majestuositat.

La veritat és que la cosa no comencava massa bé. Hi havien moltes distraccions: grupets d’abellerols melosos de colors llampants, una guatlla cantant “set-per-vuit”, la seva veu ondulant com el blat en la brisa lleugera. Un destell repentí de colors quan una puput aixecà el vol. La dolça melangia d’un parell de cotolius.

5 espècies de tallarols estaven en plena forma anunciant-se propietaris de les mates, les alzines i els roures. 5 espècies! Silenci!!. Tot aquell xibarri no em deixava pensar.

Així vaig rependre el camí. Lluny cantava un hortolà, orgullós d’haver tornat de l’Africa a la seva terra natal. Després una volada de gralles de bec-vermell van interrompre els meus pensaments amb les seves acrobàcies aèries.

A dalt de la serrelada el pas de voltors era continuo, però vaig fer un esforç sobrehumà per no fer-los cas, al igual que la merla roquera que cantava insistentment al meu darrere. Però, quan un trencalòs va planejar davant meu mirant-me de fit a fit als ulls, aleshores vaig adonar-me’n que els ocells m’havien guanyat la partida.

Birding hotspots – a challenge

Visitors to the BirdingInSpain.com website may have noticed a section called “Hotspot Holidays” (if they haven’t how can they come to Spain and expect to find sandgrouse on the drylands?!). The underlying concept is that there are bird hotspots in northeast Spain where the visiting birder can expect to see a great diversity of birds in a small area (within a 25 kilometre radius of a given centre). The birding areas I have chosen for the web page are Montsec and the Ebro Delta and surrounding mountains.

I’ve been pretty busy over the last month or so leading trips, day excursions and doing bird counts, especially in the area between Lleida and Montsec. I’ve not got round to counting the number of species, but as an example last week in the space of 30 hours I did two bird counts in wetland areas near Lleida and then guided friends around the Alfés drylands. The diversity was quite exciting, with the wetlands yielding birds such as Squacco Heron, Little Bittern, Night Heron, Purple Heron, Kingfisher, Cattle Egret, Golden Oriole, Penduline Tit, Black-winged Stilt, Melodious Warbler, Wryneck, etc. Then on the drylands we saw Lesser Grey Shrike, Roller, Little Bustard, Red-footed Falcon, Bee-eater, Calandra Lark, Red-rumped Swallow, Black Wheatear and another etc.

That got me thinking: instead of a county list, year list or similar, why not start a birding hotspot challenge? The idea would be to draw a circle with a radius of 25 kilometres around the home/workplace and then count the bird species you see in that area over a course of 3 years.

The 3-year idea is so we oldies can take it easier, and don’t have to go into overdrive frantically looking for missing species or a lot of twitching just in case. Of course, there should be no law against twitching in the given area, or the amount of time that one spends birding. However the main focus of the birding hotspot list would be for birders to go about our abnormal lives, making a note of all the birds we see and then to compare lists after 3 years.

Who has the hottest birding hotspot? How many species are on that list? Will anyone take up the challenge?

Bird poison man gets prison sentence

This is a news item taken from the Spanish newspaper El Periódico, Friday 30/05/08:

On Thursday 29th May 2008 Carles Casas, ex-president of the basketball Club TDK Manresa, was sentenced to 14 months in prison by the courts of Lleida. He admitted to having used poison to kill animals on a game preserve near Tàrrega, Lleida. However, he can commute the sentence by paying a fine of 2,520 euros.

In 2005 the rural agents of Catalonia discovered that he had killed at least 7 animals using this illegal and indiscriminate method, including protected species such as Wildcat and a number of raptors.

It was not the first time that Casas had tried to poison fauna, as previously in 2003 he was caught in fraganti by the rural guards while in the process of preparing poisoned meat.

Personal comment: Well at last the judicial process has gone the whole way and taken the laws on the protection of fauna seriously enough to sentence someone. Many would have liked to see a harsher sentence, but at least the precedent has been set. So a word of warning to all potential wildlife-bashers: the law does have teeth and is prepared to use them at times.

Montsec welcomes birders!

I’ve just come back from a conference held at the wonderful Avellanes monastery in Montsec (see recommended accommodation link on the Montsec itineraries of the BirdingInSpain.com website). Centred around initiatives to promote tourism motivated by appreciation of the rich natural and cultural heritage of this relatively unknown area, the speakers  expounded on different subjects including  the completion of the astronomic observatory of Montsec, a strategic cross-frontier plan for historic tourism, and birdwatching (me).

It was a mixed audience, with mayors, local politicians, hoteliers and private entrepreneurs, but there was good feeling all around, or so it seemed to me. I explained the potential of birdwatching tourism for the area, above all its possible contribution to a framework of sustainable tourism. And that this year BirdinginSpain.com has already contributed to the region with 100 hotel nights. Thanks to all those who have made that possible. Although I’m sure you all enjoyed the Little Bustards, Rollers, Black Wheatears, Bonelli’s Eagles and all the other great birds that we have seen in this marvellous birding area of Spain.

It would be sad if such a promising start didn’t gather momentum. It would also be something of a personal failure if the good people of Montsec, currently very receptive to the idea of birding and sustainable tourism, were left with the feeling that it was all just hollow talk. So my request to you, the birding reader: if you are thinking of coming on a birding trip to Spain check out the free Montsec itineraries, and if interested then go one step further and look at the recommended accommodation. There really is no catch. The final choice is up to you, but don’t distrust or ignore an excellent birding option, and the advice of someone who knows a thing or two about Birding in Spain.

Page 12 of 15
1 10 11 12 13 14 15