The (not) Gravel Pits: To the Sun....Seville....Cordoba.....Ronda....Matalascanas

Trip to Spain

A very happy ten days away from the cold UK.....although the weather is not guaranteed in Spain during the spring there are a couple of things to note.....

First....spring flowers....and how green it is....as they come out of their winter.....their season is obviously ahead of ours here in the UK....so there was a fine display of flowers as well as all the birds in action...doing what birds do....we dont usually get to see such greenery an flowers as we arrive in the height of the Spanish summer when everything has been desicated by the heat....

Second....cant remember....but if I do I will come back to it...

So...the bird list....remembering it was a family holiday I did get to visit some lovely places with them and without them (theres a song in there somewhere)....

My favourite sightings are in red.....lifers in blue....Swifts....probably both Pallid and Common for sure but telling the difference....so ive gone for Swift sp.....

Feral Pigeon Spotless Starling House Sparrow Greenfinch Swift House Martin

Collared Dove Monk Parakeet Mallard Ring-neck Parakeet Sardinian Warbler

Goldfinch Spanish Sparrow Jackdaw Lesser Kestrel Hoopoe

Corn Bunting Linnet White Stork Orphean Warbler Woodchat Shrike

Thekla Lark Zitting Cisticola Stonechat Cettis Warbler Little Egret

Black-crowned Night Heron Grey Heron Nightingale Chaffinch

Reed Warbler Cattle Egret Blackcap Serin Cormorant

Grey Wagtail Great White Egret Squacco Heron Glossy Ibis Griffon Vulture

Willow Warbler Short-toed Eagle Egyptian Vulture Chough Crag Martin

Jay Wren Blue Tit Common Sandpiper Booted Eagle

Blue Rock Thrush Bee-eater Black Wheatear Nightjar Cuckoo

Collared Pratincole Red-rumped Swallow Barn Swallow Melodious Warbler

Black-winged Stilt Coot Spoonbill Red Kite Black Kite

Shoveller Black Tern Magpie Golden Oriole Red-crested Pochard

Pochard Little Grebe Purple Swamphen Purple Heron Savis Warbler

Short-toed Treecreeper Chiffchaff Azure-winged Magpie Garden Warbler

Kingfisher Turtle Dove Moorhen Marsh Warbler Marsh Harrier

Several highlights.....

.......climbing to the top of a mountain to see Griffon Vultures close up, passing just a few feet away....majestic.....

....the number of Black Terns and Black Kites at El Rocio....amazing....and passing overhead without worry....

...both species of Parakeet in Seville...probably the noise of Seville really....dominated everywhere....to hear it at most turns of the street was great....

...Hoopoes, White Storks...always great to catch up with and see on such regularity....

.....the adult male Woodchat Shrike sitting in a small bush allowing spectacular views.....

...the first real 'sighting' of a Savis Warbler....took an hour of patience standing, listening to it reeling which ive heard in places before, so technically not a lifer....but it sat out in the open for a few minutes eventually.....stunning....

....Marsh Warbler...never really having identified these on my own, it was so obviously no other warbler....

....Lesser Kestrel....one of the aims of the trip to Seville....oddly once I had caught up with them there I began to see them at every tower in other towns and villages....great....