A quick breather between tours. And so a quick note on some of the birds just seen on a birding tour organised by BirdingInSpain.com for Beat Ruegger, a well-known Swiss birder and tour leader for Liberty Bird.<\/p>\n
The route: Barcelona – Ebro Delta – Lleida – Belchite – Plan in the Pyrenees of Arag\u00f3n. All in northeast Spain.<\/p>\n
The dates: from 12th to 20th April<\/p>\n
The tour participants: a total of 14 birders, including myself and Beat Ruegger as the bird guides.<\/p>\n
The numbers: 196 bird species detected, in spite of 2 days strong winds and 2 days of rain (we really need rain here in Catalonia so I won’t complain!).<\/p>\n
What’s behind the numbers: we managed to see all of the special target birds the group was interested in seeing. And there were quite a few pleasant surprises along the way. And quality encounters all through.<\/p>\n
Some of the birds:<\/p>\n
No fewer than 6 Dupont’s larks were seen (yes, seen!) on the Belchite steppes, including 2 parent larks with 2 young Dupont Lark offspring. Additionally, two singing Dupont’s Larks allowed themselves to be watched at leisure by all in the birding group.<\/p>\n
16 Lammergeiers (not a total, but all at once!) in the sky in the Ordesa National Park. And scenery to remember for a long time.<\/p>\n
A last-minute Wallcreeper on the edge of the village of Plan, after we were turned back by the snow when trying to reach a known site for this incredible bird. In the same place as two Alpine Accentors the previous day!<\/p>\n
About a dozen male Little Bustards fighting, chasing and displaying on the drylands of Lleida on a pre-breakfast outing.<\/p>\n
A pair of Bonelli’s Eagles drifting over our heads in Montsec.<\/p>\n
Then the surprises: a Baillon’s Crake watched at leisure in the Ebro Delta on the 12th April (what a way to start! Could we keep it up?).<\/p>\n
A Red-necked Nightjar on the second day, again in the Ebro Delta. This time while we were eating our picnic lunches!<\/p>\n
A Broad-billed Sandpiper in the Ebro Delta just before we made our way inland towards Lleida.<\/p>\n
A Ring Ouzel in the Montsec range in the morning (only the third I’ve seen in the area after more than 15 years of regular birding around Lleida). Then a Red-necked Phalarope at an inland lake in the afternoon. Too much!<\/p>\n
Two days later there was a late Crane by the River Ebro to the south of Zaragoza. And on the last day an early Ortolan Bunting on the edge of Plan.<\/p>\n
One day all birding trips will be made this way!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A quick breather between tours. And so a quick note on some of the birds just seen on a birding tour organised by BirdingInSpain.com for Beat Ruegger, a well-known Swiss birder and tour leader for Liberty Bird. The route: Barcelona – Ebro Delta – Lleida – Belchite – Plan in the Pyrenees of Arag\u00f3n. All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birding-and-wildlife-trips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7I752-1G","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}