Some appreciative words from Jim Mori, an American birder living in Japan:<\/p>\n
On March 1, 2008, I had a great day in the drylands of Lleida<\/strong> with the pleasant company of Steve West<\/strong>. He is very adept in finding the birds and most species are easy to see in the open terrain of the region. The early morning was slightly overcast but pleasant, and the many flowering almond trees<\/strong> provided a fragrant and colorful backdrop. Among the various birds, we had good scope views of larks to sort out the Crested and Thekla Larks<\/strong>. Later, the Calandra Larks<\/strong> were much easier. There were also Red-legged Partridge, Bullfinch, Spotless Starling, Red-rumped Swallow<\/strong>, Chough, Southern Grey Shrike, and a flock of Pin-tailed Sandgrouse<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We returned to the atmospheric La Garbinada<\/strong> hotel for a full breakfast, In the afternoon we headed for the Montsec area. Along the cliffs there As the light was fading, I was impressed that Steve could find a Stone With recent splits and lumps it is sometimes hard to figure out what is a Jim Mori<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some appreciative words from Jim Mori, an American birder living in Japan: On March 1, 2008, I had a great day in the drylands of Lleida with the pleasant company of Steve West. He is very adept in finding the birds and most species are easy to see in the open terrain of the region. […]<\/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-111","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\/p7I752-1N","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","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=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdinginspain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwhich included a glass of the local wine. Feeling pretty mellow for the
\nrest of the morning, I was not greatly disappointed in missing the Little
\nOwl we were looking for. There were many birds for the rest of morning,
\nincluding good views of Great Spotted Cuckoo<\/strong>, Red Kite, and a flock of
\nLittle Bustards<\/strong>. We saw numerous raptors with Buzzards, Merlin, Marsh
\nHarrier, Hen Harrier, and a Golden Eagle.<\/p>\n
\nwere Rock Bunting<\/strong>, Alpine Accentors<\/strong>, Black Wheatear<\/strong>, and a pair of
\nPeregrines. Close by along the Noguera River there was a beautiful
\nPenduline Tit<\/strong> in bright plumage.<\/p>\n
\nCurlew<\/strong> while driving and scanning the fields. The bird is not so easy to
\nsee even when you know where it is. It was especially gratifying to end the
\ntrip with this bird since we had been searching for it all day.<\/p>\n
\nseperate species. Using various field guides and webpages, I decided the
\nRed-rumped Swallow was not a new species for me, since we have the same
\nbird in Japan. However, the Buzzard turned out to be a new bird since it is
\nsplit from the similar Eastern Buzzard in Japan. Overall, the exciting day
\nhad over 50 species with 21 new ones for me.<\/p>\n