BirdingInSpain

Domestic birding.

With the long, hot summer days and not a great deal of paid work on the near horizon a spot of evening birding has become something like an essential boredom survival technique. So round about 6pm, when the sun’s rays don’t bite into the flesh, I hop into the red Suzuki and drive to a birding spot as near as possible to Lleida.

The trusty Red Suzuki 

A few days ago I followed the river Segre’s course out of town, and watched a couple of very young Penduline Tits, all gape and contact calls, in some bulrushes opposite the sewage treatment plant. When mother flew over the river – maybe the grass was greener on the other side – her bewildered-looking offspring were hot on her heels, despite the obvious exertion required from such a small, virtually tailless and clueless young bird.

By that time joggers and cyclists were about in some number, so waders such as Green Sandpipers and Little Ringed Plovers were only at ease in the widest parts of the river with little stone or mud islands.

I eventually parked and took a walk around the Basses de Rufea, a few smallish tree- and reed-fringed ponds, and one of those places you felt could always deliver a surprise or two. I particularly have my sights set on the Tamarisk scrub flanking the eastern side of the pools, there’s just got to be a rare passerine turning up there sooner or later, as long as its watched. This I left to last.

A vaguely familiar bird call came from the small poplar plantation as I passed. I had to think about it for a moment or two before I placed the clear and repeated “kek-kek” as a juvenile Golden Oriole, a call which I hear much less than the familiar onomatopoeic “o-ri-ol” or the squealing “cat call”. I stood for a minute or two, lazily scanning the canopy in a vague hope of seeing the calling bird, which never happened. Oh well, que será será.

Some small details had changed since my last visit: where the old hide had been burnt down there was now a more sensible wooden screen with viewing slits at different heights. The emergent vegetation had emerged so much though that there was little of the open water to be seen, and fewer birds, ie none. It’s never an easy job trying to “manage” nature. A new path led me around the edge of this pond for the first time, and I found myself cutting across an unmarked trail to get to another viewing point, again with a new wooden screen.

Perhaps the greatest claim to fame of Rufea is what one can see from this spot: a large, disperse and often lively colony of herons and egrets dotted all over the trees growing on islands or right at the water’s edge. Abundant Cattle Egrets, numerous Little Egrets (although I had to look closer and more carefully than normal to separate these two species because of the large number of darker-billed and dark-legged juvenile Cattle Egrets), and several Night Herons, mostly juveniles, in view. A few Grey Herons here and there, all but one standing by the reeds and studying their reflections in the water. A single Squacco Heron flew over my head from behind me and landed out of view. Not too many years ago that would have raised eyebrows and the pulses of any Segrià county listers that there may have been. Lastly was another rare gem, although not seen, but unmistakably identified by its muffled barking call, a Little Bittern.

It was quite fun to see half a dozen Cattle Egrets riding sheepback among a tightly-packed flock of maybe two hundred sheep. Some rain fell from heavy clouds, and I picked out a large poplar for shelter. Its thick, slightly hollowed trunk lay at the ideal slant and even had a kink just above head height. I was quite looking forward to putting it to the rain test, but the rain stopped all too soon. I’ll have to remember that tree and go back and test it under better conditions.

Nightingale. Didn’t see one. 

And that was it really. I skirted around the Tamarisk bushes, getting bitten by a few insects, thinking that the dark clouds and the breeze wouldn’t give me the right combination to find my sought after rarity, and so it was. The only other birds I encountered were a couple of Reed Warblers and a scolding Cetti’s Warbler. And you ask: Was that because there were no unusual birds there at the time, or because you didn’t make any effort to find them?

That is something we’ll never know.

Ophrys orchids

My first discovery of this species was my field guide to the orchids of Catalonia (Guia de camp de les orquídies de Catalunya) and I must admit to some sense of wonder that Catalonia had its own species of orchid. However, I hadn’t actually seen one until this spring.

In early May I was escorting photographers to and from our hides based at Montsonís, in the  province of Lleida. One of these was a keen Belgian photographer and naturalist, Bart Vercruysse, and he alerted us to the presence of these beautiful Ophrys orchids which I had never seen before. On seeing a few flowers in full bloom it was immediately obvious that they were not one of the species I was used to seeing in the area, namely O.spegodes, O.scolopax, O.apifera and O.fusca, and the name Ophrys catalaunica rang a bell in my head.

Ophrys bertolonii subsp catalaunica photos by Bart Vercruysse

Delightful, although I must admit a little disappointment on later discovering that Wikipedia states that O.catalunica is not acceptable, and that the scientific name of this plant should be taken as Ophrys bertolnii subsp catalaunica.

Oh well, it was no less beautiful, even though it’s not accepted as a species in its own right.

A new logo for Birding In Spain

This is the Birding In Spain logo that has served us faithfully on t-shirts, e-mails, webs, etc over the last years:

This is the new Birding In Spain logo, because we think it’s time for a change, and maybe more than just logos:

Theoretically birding and relativity

Or… “Location, location, location!” 

Now it could be true that a large part of birding and the excitement that seeing a certain bird can provoke among birders can be quite closely measured using the DOB rule.

Namely that excitement is inversely proportional to :

Distance Of Bird (DOB) from observer x species occurrence index

OK, I just made it up. So what am I trying to say?

Let’s look at an example:

Above we have the modest Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra) – from now on just “Coot”, as it is usually termed in British English.

If you (i) live in Europe and (ii) see a Coot on your local river and (iii) it is close enough to be well seen through the binoculars you are carrying, and (iv) it is within its normal range and is relatively common on that stretch of river your response might materialize in such a facial expression:

Now if the Coot in question is so far away as to be a barely identifiable blob in your telescope your reaction, if any, might look like this:

If the Coot is on that same river but somehow you have managed to get so close to it that you can take a good photo with your unassuming camera and lens, your response might be like this:

Now for a change of habitat. If a Coot appears on your city terrace and is looking into your bedroom/living room window you might wear this expression:

If you unexpectedly encounter a Coot swimming in your bath then your reaction would possibly be reflected in this look:

If the poor Coot is plucked and roasted and sitting on your dinner plate, and you are an inhabitant of the Ebro Delta, you might wear this expression:

If its plucked and roasted and sitting on your dinner plate and you are an inhabitant of Barcelona, you might be wearing this expression:

If you are out walking the dog at your local marshes somewhere in California and a Coot crosses your path, you might pay witness to the event like this:

Well, that’s my relatively theoretical  theory. What’s yours?

Merry Christmas!

Florinda, Steve and Lionel the Little Bustard would like to wish all our friends, partners, clients, colleagues and collaborators a

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year 2014!

Our thanks to Mike Watson for permitting the use of his photo of this jumping Little Bustard!

Fly direct to Barcelona from 6 London airports

Fly to Barcelona from…

Heathrow

Gatwick

Stansted

Luton

City

Southend

Direct flights to Barcelona. And then just an hour and a half to Lleida by car, or just over an hour by train. And all the possibilities that opens up…

Birding

Hide Photography

Nature

A holiday.

Barcelona birdwatching tour

Are you a birder thinking of birding in Spain while visiting Barcelona? You might have considered organizing a Barcelona birdwatching tour, so you can go birdwatching around Barcelona for a day or two.

And then your desire for birdwatching might have taken you further. You will have surely heard about birding the steppes of Spain, and then could be tempted to add the steppes and plains of Lleida, Huesca or Zaragoza to your personalized birdwatching tour.

And then if the birdwatching tour has taken you to the steppes it would be a shame to miss out birdwatching in the Pyrenees, wouldn’t it? After all, the Pyrenees are not far from the steppes and offer some great birdwatching opportunities. So now on your birdwatching tour of Catalonia and northeast Spain you could include one of the beautiful national parks of the Pyrenees – Aigüestortes National Park in Catalonia, or Ordesa National Park in Aragón. These birding sites are ideal places for enjoying the most spectacular mountain scenery, but many there are many other places for birdwatching where you can bird for special alpine and forest birds.

OK. So now we have a birdwatching tour starting in Barcelona and visiting the steppes and the Pyrenees. And what about birdwatching in the Ebro Delta? No birdwatching tour in this part of Spain would be complete without birding in the Ebro Delta for a surprising array of wetland birds.

This sounds like a brilliant birdwatching tour, but there are some problems. Firstly, what would be the ideal route for such a tour? What particular itineraries should be planned into this birdwatching tour to encounter the greatest variety of birds, and to guarantee some of the rarer or more localized birds? Well, that’s where we at Birding In Spain can help. 

Secondly, how are we going to allocate ourselves enough time to do this birdwatching tour enough justice? Ah – now that’s something you have to work out for yourself.

Birding Mallorca

Thanks to Geoff and June for their appreciative comments of the Birding In Spain itineraries for birding on Mallorca, as well as the useful update about access to the Salines de Salobrar in the south of the island.

First a sincere thank you for the information on your web site. We’ve just had a short birding trip to Majorca (Mallorca) and your information and itineraries were perfect.

Now some updated information. The salt company at the Salines de Salobrar have put up no access signs. There is also a locked gate on the path your itinerary tells visitors to use. By the gate there is a new information board about the birds, which we found strange. We then met another couple of birders who told us the company now want you to go to the salt plant and pay €10 to enter the site and walk around to see the birds. I have to admit we hoped across a bank and stayed at the edge of area to see what was there.

Finally, we spent quite a while looking for Thekla larks without any luck. On our last morning we took a walk from our rural hotel in Moscari to get a photo of the hotel across the fields and there, no more than 200m from the hotel, we saw a pair feeding.

We found Majorca a great place to bird watch at this time of the year.

Again thanks for your website.

Elsewhere on Mallorca you can find Purple Gallinules 

Geoff & June Seabrook

Extreme weather II

April 2013 ended with 6 consecutive days of rain, at times very heavy, at what was the height of our plains in spring photography season. This was very annoying to some of our guest photographers, having to face up to the challenge of getting photos of plains birds from our hides without getting soaked or coated in mud. Sometimes the challenge was just getting to the hides!

Little Owls had to make do with what they could find

This was irksome, but worst still for us was the bird side of things: Small colonies of Bee-eaters were excavating nests one day and just “gone” the next, perhaps to reappear when the rain stopped, or perhaps not; Little Owls and Lesser Kestrels seemed to be relying on millipedes to tide them through hard times in the complete absence of grasshoppers; male Little Bustards occasionally threw their heads back in a half-hearted display but downright refused to do anything that could be construed as a “jump”.

Little Bustards were not convinced about the advantages of jumping. Photo by Jordi Bas.

Then came the summer, and things returned to normal, or a close resemblance of it. Rollers started inspecting the nestboxes we had put up for them; Hobbies were using regular perches in the vicinity of their nest; and one day I located a Green Woodpecker’s nest with several tiny chicks in the hollow trunk of an old almond tree.

Rollers were ousted from nestboxes by the violent storms. Photo by Jordi Bas.

In June a hailstorm hit the plains area. Only 3 villages were mentioned in the local news, but those 3 places mark the area of the drylands where these birds were nesting. That week I went back to the Green Woodpecker’s nest and checked: there’d be no chicks raised from that particular brood, as the nest was flooded. Maybe the adults could try again, but what about Little Bustards and Montagu’s Harriers nesting unprotected in the open fields? How would they have fared?

One of the nesting Hobbies was killed by the hail.

But worst was yet to come. About two weeks later another hailstorm hit almost exactly the same area. And this time round it was really virulent. The day after scenario couldn’t be more disheartening: one of the nesting Hobby pair was lying dead at the foot of the nesting tree; the lid of one of the Roller nestboxes had been blown off and the contents completely cleaned out; Montagu’s Harriers were nowhere to be seen.

A Green Woodpecker’s nest was “flooded out”. Photo by Wim de Groot.

Somebody should be quoted here. Perhaps Mark Twain  “Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get”, or perhaps Frank Lane “If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm”.

Birding In Spain binocular review

We are proud to announce that recently Birding In Spain has struck up an interesting area of collaboration with Vanguard, manufacturers of sporting optics, camera bags and accessories, tripods, etc.

But first of all a confession: We were not at all familiar with Vanguard products, with their binoculars or telescopes, their daypacks and assorted bags, not even with their award-winning tripods. And although we’re not always in tune with the latest in anything, not even birding gear and optics, we’ve been into birding in many ways for a long time now, we’ve come into contact with a lot of birders from most parts of the world, and we’re familiar with the big name brands in optics and other birding gear. Or so we thought.

In other words, we couldn’t help feeling somewhat skeptical about the material that was on its way to us from Vanguard, and began to wonder if we really wanted to get professionally involved with a brand that was so unfamiliar to us. Recommending products that we weren’t convinced of would be compromising our professional standards, and that was not something we wanted to do. At the same time, how could we not give the products a fair opportunity, after Vanguard had sent them to us in such good faith?

Fortunately, we can say the dilemma has been solved, and in the best way possible. Firstly, Vanguard have acted with efficiency and eloquence in the way they have their products to us and, secondly, our inspection of the products themselves has dispelled the major withholdings or doubts we may have had. We like what we’ve seen, and very much! 

Another confession: As professional guides we use top of the range binoculars of brands that are familiar to all birders in Europe and probably around the world, and we see no reason to change. So I personally will not be leading birding tours with my new Vanguard binoculars as my main pair of binoculars. However, that is not the point.

We also organize birdwatching courses and field excursions, get client’s companions who come along without binoculars, work with field collaborators, and it’s also very useful to have a “back-up” pair in case something happens to the main pair of binoculars, and without having to suffer a great compromise in effectiveness and image quality. So the new binoculars should see plenty of action! And they’re a lot more affordable than our main pair of binoculars, something that is very important to bear in mind when comparing their performance with models that could easily be 4 times or more their price.

So what about the review? Well, after trying out the Endeavour ED 10 x 42 in the field we looked through the Internet to try and find a glossary of terms to explain things more correctly, to come to terms with the terminology ourselves (e.g. lens coatings, eye relief, etc) and came across the review below which was already written, and in the most professional manner. There’s no way we could get close to writing such a well-constructed review, and what’s more we agree with virtually everything that’s said here, so there’s no compromising our standards or opinions just because Vanguard sent us some review material.

Here it is: Best Binoculars Reviews

There’s one major point we would add, and it’s not a positive one. The author of the review is very impressed by the low light performance of these binoculars, but our location and time of year has led us to do our initial trials under very different conditions: very bright light typical of midsummer in our continental Mediterranean climate, where right now the temperature outside must be around 35ºC. With such trials we have noticed colour-fringing (chromatic aberration) – yellow or purple fringes to contrasting lines and edges especially when viewing objects (antennas, common swifts, tree branches) against a bright sky. How much of an issue can this be? We’re not sure just yet so we’ll have to test the binoculars under less intense lighting conditions to see how the trials compare.

Oh, and another thing we’re not quite sure whether to test or not: Can we wash them under the tap?