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.
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| 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.
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| 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,
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| Golden Eagle |
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| 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.
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| 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
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