There are four different species of vultures breeding on the Iberian peninsula and probably the Lammergeier is the most impressive of them all. It’s also one of the birds on most raptor enthusiast’s wish list and not always an easy bird to see at close range. Like many people until I saw one at a […]
Tag: Spain
Migration across to Europe
It’s quite a long photo post this week and please scroll down and enjoy the views we’ve been having. I’ve been quite busy and wanted to write up more but I was out in the field most days and had lots of emails and other office work to do. Black-eared Wheatears continued to show up […]
Great Bustard: the great show in the plains
The Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is one of the largest and most spectacular European birds. Mature males can attain a wingspan of 2,4 meters and a weight of 18 kg, and are among the world’s heaviest flying birds; only its African relative the Kori Bustard and the Mute Swan can dispute that title. Females are […]
Rain Sun Rain
Our newly arrived Red-Rumped Swallows start the task of nest building, feeding as the go. Black-eared Wheatears have been arriving with the lovely male photographed on the 15th. With a backdrop of the Grazalema mountain range Greater Flamingoes create a pink hue across the landscape as they move into feed at Venta La Palma on […]
Short-eared Owl at Dusk
Short-eared Owls(Asio flammeus) are wonderful birds to watch hunting across the glowing evening landscape of la Janda in Cadiz province, Spain. Andalucía has a fantastic wealth of bird species all year round and during the colder winter months in the north of Europe many birds spend months in the south-west corner of this avian paradise […]
The Mountain Apollo
Parnassius apollo pyrenaicus – Papilionidae – Parnassius The Apollo’s mating plug or Sphragis is visible on the photo below: It is particular to the females of this lepidoptera family.It is deposited by a male into the female genital tract and later hardens into a plug assuring the male that only his sperm cells will fertilize […]
Short-toed Eagles
There is a very interesting paper written by members of Fundación Migres here in Andalucía, entitled ‘Autumn Migration of Juvenile Short-Toed Eagles Circaetus gallicus from Southeastern Spain’. Onset, duration and routes of migration differed between the two individuals, but both eventually settled in approximately the same area (c. 170 km apart). The wintering grounds were […]
Do the Bee-eaters decimate bees?
Southern Spain is yet again suffering a general lack of rain. The Mediterranean climate is characterised by periods of rain followed periods of drought with a resultant biodiversity paradise.We now appear to be entering a drought period after three winters with ample rainfall. In the start of what appears to be a new drought period […]