Back to Patch

I got back from Spain late Saturday night and spent yesterday, Sunday. catching up. With a south east breeze and sunny conditions it was perfect raptor migration weather so I put a couple of hours in garden skywatching from around 1130 to 1330 HERE. There were nearly a dozen Honey Buzzards going over Beachy Head the same day around the same time too but all I could muster was a Red Kite, 8 Common Buzzard, 2 Sparrowhawk, 3 Kestrel, 3 Common Swift and a Green Sandpiper tried to land in Kyle's aviary pond. 

When there are big Red Kite movements in Sussex they don't appear in numbers on the Peninsula and Honey Buzzards are very rare locally so presumably raptors don't migrate over the Peninsula much. I have spent many hours skywatching and not really seen anything too conclusive in the way of raptor passage, mainly local raptors moving around. Presumably they all head east and over to Beachy and Dungeness for the shortest Channel crossing. 

Today I planned to do more but it was raining in the morning so I concentrated on Ferry and Church Norton area HERE. 84 species of nearly 3000 individuals with a nice selection of common migrants including 10 Spotted Flycatchers, a Redstart, 3 Wheatear, 2 Whinchat. 4 Meadow Pipit over, Yellow Wagtails, Sedge and Reed Warbler, Lesser and Common Whitethroat, Blackcaps, Willow Warblers and Chiffs, a juv Little Stint and a late juv Little Ringed Plover and a late juv Little Tern.

Early morning while doing the moths I had a Hobby going after the hirundines and 4 Greylags flew over. 

The moth trap was quite lively with Centre-barred Sallow and Feathered Gothic new for years.  

Spot Flys on the gravestones at Church Norton- always wanted to photograph migrants sitting on the grave stones so I went to town on them. Unfortunately I missed the Redstart that briefly landed on one. 

Centre-barred Sallow- NFY

Feathered Gothic- NFY, now on 536 for the year

White-backed Vulture Twitch , Galicia

This was surely the most high-tech twitch I've ever done. 

A White-backed Vulture had been satellite tagged in Morrocco and was tracked across the Iberian Peninsula until it settled in the Northern Spain region. The bird is covering a huge area daily and can roost at different sites over hundreds of kilometers. The GPS location of the bird is unfortunately guarded to only a few select Iberian birders but fortunately we had a friend on the inside who provided us with the GPS data.

On Wednesday we knew it had been south of Mondonedo so on the way to the Kelp Gull we had a look for it. However in sunny conditins and with Griffon Vultures soaring in the distance the bird could have been a long way from our latest GPS update. We failed to locate the bird that day.

On Friday we decided on a new strategy, we arranged for the GPS location to be sent to us at around 6pm when we noticed the other local vultures were no longer flying and presumably had gone to roost for the night. We hoped we could find the bird at roost and if not would know where to wait the following morning for it to start flying as the heat of the day got up. 

So at around 5.30pm on Friday we had a mid-afternoon GPS location update so went to the location only to find a well picked carcass and no vultures. At around 6.30pm we received the roost site GPS location so headed over there only to arrive in thick fog. Markku and Petri (Corvo birders) were in Spain too so we arranged to meet there but alas indeed there was hardly any visibility.   

We were able to work out the precise spot of the GPS location in the Pine wood and indeed the shape of a vulture was barely visible though the fog. Closer to the road there were some Griffon Vultures roosting in slightly better visibility. 

We tried White-backed Vulture calls to get the bird to fly closer, Markku went into the wood to try and get closer and we waited until dusk in the hope the fog would lift. We also got the thermal camera out to see more details. Despite having telescopes, image stabilising optics, playback audio, thermal imaging, 600mm DSLR lenses and a satellite (!)- nothing worked in getting any better views . 

The next morning we arrived for plan B, waiting for it to fly up but the fog was even worse. There was a 2 minute easing of the fog at one point and Vincent got a photo that shows the structure better and critically seems to show the satellite tag on the back!

With a plane to catch home we had to leave before the fog cleared so all we had seen was a barely visible vulture shape. A dodgy tick but in technolgoy we trust! 

A WP tick but not a year tick as had them in Ghana earlier in the year. Did get quite a few year ticks in Spain so now on 929 for the year and what with the 3 WP ticks now on 748 for the WP (71 ranking). 

What with the Kelp Gull, two African vagrants in a week in Northen Spain- unexpected stranger things! 

Griffon Vulture (left) and White-backed Vulture (right) in the fog (Vincent Legrand). GPS box visible on it's back was the best identification feature! Also structure and size differences. 

This was as good as the views got

The GPS maps we had to work with 

Showing a bit better at the same site were these Autumn Lady's Tresses orchids (lifer)

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