BirdingInSpain

Vulture visitors from Down Under

The following text and photos are kindly reproduced with the permission of their author, Ian Montgomery, who paid our raptor hides a visit this October.  

The first photo shows part of Boumort National Reserve in the foothills of the Pyrenees in Catalonia about 40km southwest of Andorra. A reserve since 1991, It has an area of 13,000 hectares and is of special importance as one of the only places in Europe where all four European species of vultures breed. Three occur naturally, while the fourth, the Eurasian Black or Cinereous Vulture has been reintroduced, after becoming extinct in the Pyrenees in recent decades. I made arrangements to visit it through Steve West of Birding in Spain, including getting the necessary permit to photograph these birds, accommodation and transport.

As part of the conservation effort, the vultures are fed three times a week and I was taken to the feeding site by two rangers who had collected carcasses and meat off-cuts from farmers in the vicinity. The site is equipped with a spacious and comfortable hide, complete with toilet, and I was left there alone for the day after they had spread out the meat and carcasses in front of the hide. When we arrived there were already between one and two hundred vultures, almost all Griffons, soaring high above. I had been briefed beforehand that the first arrivals would be Griffons, with Eurasian Blacks arriving later in the morning when the crowds thinned, while the iconic Lammergeier could be expected, probably, in small numbers in the middle of the afternoon. The fourth species, the Egyptian Vulture is a summer visitor and had already departed for Africa.

Sure enough, as soon as the rangers left, large numbers of Griffons glided in and squabbled noisily over the food. Griffons feed mainly on muscles and viscera and attacked the carcasses and pieces of meat with great gusto. The bird in the second photo showing its skill at balancing on a rock on one foot and waving the other is an adult, recognisable by its white ruff, horn-coloured bill and pale wing coverts. The one in the third photo is a juvenile, with grey bill, coffee-coloured ruff and darker wings. Juveniles generally had a covering of short plumage on the head and neck, while the adults often had relatively bare necks.

The breeding range of the Griffon Vulture extends from Portugal in the west to northeastern India and southwestern Kazakhstan in the east. Spain is its main stronghold in the west with about 8,000 pairs and the species is not considered under threat.

These birds are huge and it was wonderful to observe them up close. The black bird in the fourth photo sneaking a mouthful from under the watchful eye of a Griffon is a Common Raven. This is the largest passerine in the world, with a length of up to 67cm/26in and wingspan of up to 130cm/51in, larger than a Common Buzzard, but completely dwarfed by the vulture. Griffons are up to 110cm/43in in length, with a wingspan of up to 280cm/110in and weighting up to 11kg/24lbs.

In the air, they glide effortlessly and powerfully and the enormous wings make the body appear quite small by comparison. They come into land looking like parachutists under square canopies but with the ponderous, unwavering stability of a large aircraft like a B747 or an A380. Look how elegantly and precisely the toes are arranged with all the poise of an Olympic diver, fifth photo.

It really was an extraordinary experience watching the spectacle of these amazing birds, even if their table manners left much to be desired. The large amount of food disappeared at a great rate and the crowds started to disperse, leaving the scene, one hoped, for the later, rarer and more picky species. To be continued…

Greetings

Ian

Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,

454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818

Tel 0411 602 737 [email protected]

Bird Photos http://www.birdway.com.au/

Where to Find Birds in Northern Queensland: iTunes; Google Play

Recorder Society http://www.nqrs.org.au

Birding northeast Spain

Here are some images to accompany the trip report we posted in the last blog entry:

Trip Report: Images from Late Winter Birding in Northeast Spain

A birding trip report kindly reproduced by permission of its author Steve Lane. We invite you to read this amiable report about how his group encountered Wallcreepers, Lammergeiers, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, Black Wheatears and more in February last year.

Enjoy!  

Birding northeast Spain

Northeast Spain birding trip report February 2013

A birding trip report kindly reproduced by permission of its author Steve Lane. We invite you to read this amiable report about how his group encountered Wallcreepers, Lammergeiers, Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, Black Wheatears and more in February last year.

Enjoy!  

Raptorfest Special Offer

We are offering November Raptorfest photo trips with a 10% discount.

See full details here…

November Raptorfest photo trip special offer 

For example, the birds photographed in one day last year, on the 30th October:

2 Bonelli’s Eagles from the Bonelli’s Eagle hide

1 Golden Eagle, 2 Goshawks, several Buzzards and numerous Red Kites from the Raptor Hide

Little Owls from 2 different Little Owl hides

Then combine these possibilities with the well-known Lammergeier, Griffon Vulture and Black Vulture hides

Then on another day maybe add Marsh Harrier from the Raptor hide

You can have 10 species of Raptor  on a raptor photo trip in November. You also have good light that you can use for almost all of the day.

And of course all of our professional expertise that goes with our photo trips.  

Birding in Spain: the Wallcreeper

It’s December. Imagine you’re walking along the base of a steep rock face somewhere in the Pre-Pyrenees. You detect a movement and look up. There’s a bird, and it’s close enough for you to see its long, slender down-curved bill and its slate-grey and black plumage. A moment later the bird flutters, and on its open, butterfly-like wings you see a dazzling flash of deep crimson.

Wallcreeper photo by Cezary Pióro 

Rejoice! You are now among the lucky few that have set eyes on one of nature’s jewels: the Wallcreeper. An amazing bird that is at home clinging to vertical rock faces in order to probe into nooks and crannies and pry out spiders and insects with that slender bill. Little wonder then that when foreign birders visit this country this is usually the bird they most want to see, or that even the pragmatic Chinese have baptised it with the graceful name of “rock flower”.

In the breeding season the Wallcreeper inhabits sheer cliff faces in the Pyrenees at altitudes of between 2,000 and 3,000m. That means that between May and September the Wallcreeper is rarely an easy bird to see – first of all one has to reach its secluded, mountain haunts and then one has to strain the neck muscles, and often the patience too, in order to spot it among towering mountains of naked rock. That’s one reason why winter is not all bad: by then Wallcreepers have left their high mountains to occupy more accessible terrain in the pre-Pyrenees, Montsant, el Ports…even cliffs by the sea at Cap de Creus.

One day last winter I made a personal pilgrimage to the sunny rock faces of Montsec and I received my reward. I took home the Wallcreeper’s colours and a little of its wing-flashing warmth, clutching onto the vision as I descended once more into the blanket of fog enshrouding Lleida and the surrounding plains. And I hadn’t even strained my neck muscles.

Happy Wallcreeper watchers

There’s more about the Wallcreeper and many more birds in “Flying over the Pyrenees, standing on the plains” 

Northeast Spain Trip Report

Mikko Pyhälä from Finland has kindly agreed to share this trip report with Birding In Spain blog readers. Mikko came to us for a couple of day’s birding in May, and we had a very enjoyable time together.

Birding with Birding In Spain trip report May 2014

There were many highlights according to his report, but I suppose that what I will remember for the longest was the immature Golden Eagle near the roadside at Candasnos and how, inexplicably, the bird did not fly away when we approached.

That’s Mikko in the photo below, taking photos of the poppies on the drylands. Good birding and happy clients, what a magic formula. Thanks Mikko!

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.

The Raptors game

If a Bonelli’s Eagle confronted a Lesser Kestrel, which one would win?

Any parent of boystrous boys would most likely be familiar with the framework of such a question. “which one is stronger”, “Which is the fastest”, “the best” etc.

Although the answer to this particular question, that of the Bonelli’s Eagle vs the Lesser Kestrel, doesn’t seem too difficult to come by.

“The Bonelli’s Eagle, of course” is what many would probably say. And it’s true, the Bonelli’s Eagle is bigger, stronger, meaner, and I can’t imagine a Lesser Kestrel being much of a match for it. Or maybe it is….

Take a look at these two cards from La Sabina’s raptor game, and tell us what conclusion you reach.

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: