BBC London, reporting on some building developments which are being held up by protests from English Nature, announced that the three key bird species were ‘Dartmouth Warbler’ (actually Dartford Warbler), Woodlark and Nightjar. But the really amusing bit was that the Nightjar was illustrated with film of some Wigeons. It’s always slightly unnerving when journalists report on a subject which you know something about; it makes you realise how much crap they must be talking the rest of the time.
Category: Nature
I forgot to say, you can see a (fairly large) selection of my Spain photos here.
I’ve divided the list into not-very-taxonomically-coherent chunks to make it easier to read.
Little Grebe
Great-crested Grebe
?Mediterranean Shearwater
Cormorant
Little Bittern
Cattle Egret
Squacco Heron
Little Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
White Stork
Glossy Ibis
Spoonbill
Flamingo
Greylag Goose
Mallard
Gadwall
Shoveler
Garganey
Pochard
Red-crested Pochard
Griffon Vulture
Short-toed Eagle
Booted Eagle
Black Kite
Marsh Harrier
Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel
Peregrine
Red-legged Partridge
Moorhen
Coot
Purple Swamphen
Avocet
Black-winged Stilt
Collared Pratincole
Ringed Plover
Kentish Plover
Grey Plover
Sanderling
Dunlin
Curlew Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Redshank
Black-tailed Godwit
Bar-tailed Godwit
Whimbrel
Black-headed Gull
Yellow-legged Gull
Audouin’s Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Little Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Royal Tern (!!)
Whiskered Tern
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Cuckoo
Great Spotted Cuckoo
Little Owl
Swift
Pallid Swift
Hoopoe
Bee-eater
Ring-necked Parakeet
?Blue-crowned Parakeet
Crested Lark
Calandra Lark
Sand Martin
Swallow
House Martin
Tawny Pipit
White Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail
Wren
Robin
Nightingale
Wheatear
Stonechat
Blackbird
Garden Warbler
Blackcap
Sardinian Warbler
Whitethroat
Dartford Warbler
Sedge Warbler
Zitting Cisticola
Savi’s Warbler
Cetti’s Warbler
Reed Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Melodious Warbler
Chiffchaff
Spotted Flycatcher
Pied Flycatcher
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Short-toed Treecreeper
Woodchat Shrike
Azure-winged Magpie
Magpie
Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
Raven
Spotless Starling
Golden Oriole (heard)
House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow
Chaffinch
Linnet
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
Serin
Corn Bunting
I love the fact my camera has a macro mode. There’s something very satisfying about getting really close to things and taking pics of them.
The sand dunes are just covered in flowers – vetchy type things in scarlet, spikes of ghostly broomrape, mesembryanthemums, pink thistles, big daisies, all sorts of things in all shapes and colours.
The whales behaved very prettily – a group of Long-finned Pilot Whales came over and swam around the boat so we could see them. Also Common Dolphin and Striped Dolphin. They saw the first Sperm Whale of the season yesterday, apparently, but no such luck for us.
Also saw what I’m pretty sure must have been a pair of Balearic Shearwaters – the proportions seem wrong for Cory’s and the pale underside wasn’t that striking – but not being familiar with either species and only seeing them fleetingly, I don’t know if I can count it.
I’ve booked a whale-watching trip for tomorrow. I suspect this means a few dolphins and a pilot whale if you’re lucky, rather than enormous skeins of sperm whales stretching as far as the eye can see. But I figure it will also be a good way to see some pelagic birds – skuas, shearwaters, petrels and suchlike. It certainly seems worth a punt.
I am slightly worried that the famous local windiness will result in a trip mostly memorable for the vomiting, but hey-ho, the wind and the rain.