I lead a tour group from the the US Audubon Naturalist Society in April to southern Spain. We had a great time apart from the awful windy weather. The famous Levante wind just would not stop for almost the whole eight days. We did however have a great time, saw lots of birds and other […]
Tag: Short-Toed Eagle
Short-toed Eagles
Short-toed Eagles are medium sized eagles that specialise in hunting reptiles. As their name suggests they have evolved with shorter toes that enable the bird to flex and squeeze their talons into a tight grip that prevents in particular snakes and lizards from wriggling free. As slippery as a snake is quite a true expression […]
Highlights from this year’s Spring Tour on The Strait of Gibraltar – April 2015
Here’s a quick photo summary of some of the birds we watched down in Andalucia on one of my spring birdwatching tours. Each spring we offer such small tour group holidays to go out in the field and see what bird species are arriving from Africa. The close proximity of the two continents makes this […]
Melanistic Montagu’s Harrier and other Raptors
Here are some of the raptor photos we managed to see with my Swiss group from Arcatour last week. The wind direction swung around to give us moderate to strong Levante (easterlies) for five days and only died down on our last two days. Still, knowing what the migrating raptors do and where they will […]
Migrating Raptors on The Strait of Gibraltar
It’s been a busy six weeks with almost non-stop birding here on The Strait and across Europe. I thought I’d quickly post some of the raptor shots I have managed to edit so far on the blog to show at least some of the autumn delights… Black-winged Kites (old name is Black shouldered Kite) have […]
Raptor Movement and La Janda News
It’s been another busy week here down on The Strait of Gibraltar. As the summer slowly comes to an end and autumn weather and shorter days signal birds to move slowly south, the skies above Cadiz province have all kinds of bird species flying over or stopping off to feed before crossing the narrow stretch […]
Thermals and more…
Migration: Black Kites are the first raptor to migrate and cross The Strait of Gibraltar. The skies will continue to be filled with them slowly moving down towards Tarifa and if the wind is too strong for them to cross to Morocco there will be a huge build up as more and more arrive in […]
La Janda News
Good news that aerial crop spraying is now limited to only a few specific controls for health and agriculture. Natural sprays are used against mosquito control in La Janda although to be honest the problem with such insects is the same in the pine forests. Most of the fertiliser spraying that takes place is showering […]