Brown Bears- Somiedo Natural Park

With South Polar Skua and Kelp Gull under our belts we spent two days (3rd and 4th) at Somideo Natural Park looking for mammals, leps and mountain birds  HERE and HERE. Highlights included a male and female Brown Bear, Pyrenean Chamois, Red Deer, Red Squirrel and we also had Wild Boar on the journey to Estaca. 

Some nice mountain birds included Lammergeir, Griffon Vulture, Egyptian Vulture, Short-toed Eagle, Goshawk, Honey Buzzard,  Red and Yellow-billed Chough, Crag Martins, Iberian Chiffchaff, Spotless Starlings, Water Pipits and Rock Buntings. There was also a good peppering of migrants with lots of Pied Flycatchers and also Whinchats, Wheatears, Spotted Flycatcher and Yellow Wagtails. 

Quite a few year ticks in there which has put me on 929 for the year HERE. The target is to get to 1000 bird species in a year. 

I managed to get a moth trap out in our hotel garden and there were also a few butterflies around too. All records HERE with highlights including Turqouise Blue, Weaver's Frittilary, Iberian Scarce Swallowtail, Lang's Short-tailed Blue, Pea Blue, Adonis and Chalkhill Blues, Cardinal, Queen of Spain Fritillary and Oberthur's Grizzled Skipper on the buttefly front and on the moth front highlights included Annulet, Jersey Emerald, Clix hispanica,  Caradrina aspersa, Catoptria staudingeri, Plain Clay, Great Darts and Oraches. 

Female Brown Bear (images above) and male and female (below, male on left chasing female)

Pyrenean Chamois

Red Deer

Red Squirrel

Iberian Chiffchaff

Egyptian Vulture

Immature Griffon Vulture

Juvenile Goshawk

Pied Fly- more or less everywhere in the park

Spotless Starlings 

Serins- nice to see a flock of 20 or so feeding like Canaries in the ground vegetation

Turqouise Blue

Weaver's Frittilary 

Iberian Scarce Swallowtail

Caradrina aspersa

Jersey Emerald

Annulet

Catoptria staudingeri

Stunning scenery!

Bear watching at Gua

Kelp Gull, Laredo

On Wednesday afternoon (2nd) we left Estaca de Bares and headed east towards Santander to twitch a long staying Kelp Gull that arrived in Northern Spain in December 2024. The bird was at Laredo Port HERE and we were able to locate it within a few minutes of arrival. 

Will add some more notes on age and moult when I get back to my books. 

A WP tick. 

Also some good views of the local Yellow-legged Gulls. More HERE

Estaca de Bares- Seawatching

I arrived at Porto, Portugal on Sunday night (30th August) and met up with Vincent Legrand and Rene-marie Lafontaine and we drove through the night to Estaca de Bares in Galicia, Spain. After a very uncomfortable very short sleep in the car we went on to complete a 13 hour seawatch HERE. We also did another 10 hour seawatch on Monday (1st) HERE and finally a morning seawatch on 2nd HERE.

Highlights over the three days and 25 hours of seawatching included an adult South Polar Skua (lifer), a Deserta's/Zino's Petrel, 1 Wilson's Storm Petrel, 2 Sabine's Gull, 1 Grey Phalarope, 2 Barolo Shearwater, 1 Scopoli's Shearwater, 71 Sooty Shearwater, 57 Balearic Shearwater, 7500 Manx Shearwater, 300 Cory's Shearwater, 47 Long-tailed Skua, 46 Pomarine Skuas, 59 Arctic Skua and 21 Great Skua.

It was basically my best seawatch ever. Good times! 

Deserta's/Zino's Petrel (above and below) 

Juvenile Long-tailed Skua (above and below) 

Adult Poms (above three images)

Great Skua

Manx Shearwaters (above and below). At peak there were over 3000 an hour going past

Balearic Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Cory's Shearwater

Common Dolphins (above and below) 

Male Black Redstart

Bocage's Wall Lizard (lifer)

Estaca de Bares Seawatchers. Quite a challenge getting onto everything with most directions and bird names in Spanish but we managed with the help of Antonio. 

Views east of the Galician coastline