The three Amigos go Yecla

   

   Monday the 27th

Our last visit to Yecla was in October 2019, we were keen to see what had changed there?

Arriving as the sun came up and the half moon still a big presence in the sky, and a very cool 10 degrees, it's first time I've felt cold since February. 

Habit

There's lots more uncultivated fields, good for the seed eaters, perhaps it a hangover from Covid, we passed only 2 motor cars in 6 Hours of birding and nobody working the fields, except for the shepherd and his flock of 200 hundred sheep.

Lots of Magpies and hundreds of Woodpidgeon everywhere.  A pair of Thekla's Lark showed nicely and sat around long enough to observe all the features and get some photographs, in fact only one Crested Lark was seen during the day. 

Thekla Lark

Charms of Gold Finch 150+ in several places, Linnet, in good numbers, Tree Sparrow, Rock Sparrow, Corn Bunting, Little Owl, Black Wheatear, 6 Northern Wheatear,  a Common Redstart in a pine tree plantation, heard only Pin-tailed Sandgrouse and Calandra Lark.

Tree Sparrow

Our moment of the day came as we were watching 3 possibly 4 Lesser Kestrels when a Golden Eagle drifted by, John said there's a second bird much further away,

Golden Eagle

Lesser Kestrels 

 I took a few record shots of the second bird, checking the screen on the back of camera, it turned out to be a Short-toed Eagle, and unbelievable the bird then headed straight towards us stopping only to circle above the car and very obliging, and enough time for a few photos.  Later on a few Buzzard.

Short-toed Eagle

The only other moment of the day was the sheer numbers of migrating Swallows all heading one way south, a good number of Jackdaw and in the mix the odd Chough,

By the time we headed for home about 2 o'clock, it was 27 degrees and at the coast 31 degrees

A fun day out, plenty of Banter over common crane pidgeon?

A few slabs of fruit cake and tea scanning the vistas unfortunately the Weathers caramel sweets original stayed hidden and didn't come out, but the liquorice sweet made up for it?

 the other two members of the NBBC  John and Mark need an eye test?

Should have gone Specsavers?

Have fun

Cheers BT

Back birding after summer recess

I have to apologise to all the followers of my blog. For not keeping the blog up to date of late.

Its been just too hot for me to go birding through the peak summer months, and to be honest, I don't think I've missed anything of any significance or any thing that matters, we've had a brilliant spring migration and we've seen most everything you would expect to see plus more.

Wood Sandpipers

It's been a busy few months keeping he tourist entertained. (Singing) And with John and Michelle being away in the UK for a family wedding  we've missed several weeks birding, and with Gareth house hunting and out of loop we've missed him.

So we've had 2 mornings birding, it was great just to be out there, with John and Mark of the NBBC, great to have the banter back, and with like-minded people. And so a quick summary of some of the birds seen.

An escaped Oranged cheeked Cockatiel had me scratching my head for a while, till I recognised the call.  Year's ago I did have an escaped bird ( joey ) that came to my house twice a day for about a year for breakfast and dinner till he vanished maybe the millet seed wasn't up to scratch?

Oranged cheeked Cockatiel
( joey )

  Whinchat, and hundreds of Yellow Wagtails around the fields of Catral,  also Stone Curlew, Little-ringed Plover, 3 Wood Sandpipers, Ruff, 50 + Bee-eaters, Booted Eagle, Bluethroat, Collared Pratincole, plus all the usual suspects,

Whinchat

Yellow Wagtail

Stone Curlew

 Bee-eater

El Clot

Interesting morning but nothing mega to report, but plenty of quackers there, 8 Gadwall lots of White-headed Duck, Marbled Teal, Shovelers,  Common Pochard, a few Kingfisher pretending to be cruise missiles, Spotted Flycatchers, Reed Warblers, Snipe, Marsh Harrier, Glossy Ibis. Little and Black-necked Grebe. It's only going to get better as autumn progress?

Black-necked Grebe

John suggested a quick look at the Santa Pola Salinas was in order, I'm glad we did as it was quite a good decision.

 Caspian Tern

We pick out in the Black-headed Gull roost a Caspian Tern, which is a good find for us, a few lesser Black-backed Gulls in the mix, 

Osprey

2 Ospreys circled overhead, which gave us a photo opportunity,  a canteen of 37+ Spoonbills did a flypast,  Great white Egrets, Turnstones, Sanderling, Black-tailed Godwit, Redshank, Greenshank, Collared Pratincoles,  Audouin Gulls, and a point-blank Cettis warbler under the minimum focusing distance

Osprey

. And on the beach at El Pinet lots of Sandwich Tern and some Great Tits on the beach,  they always seemed to be in pairs? and double what you'd see in the pine forests of Maigmo Mountain.

 Unbelievable

Going to go back at some point and look for a Bearded Tit?

Turnstone

Let see what next week brings 

Make some news

Glad to be back online, have fun

Cheers BT.