Catalan holiday

Just got back from a family holiday in Catalunya. We spnt a week up in the Pyrenees, then a few days in Barcelona. We met up with our good friends the Chittendens, who drove in all the way from the UK. From a family perspective, it was a perfect holiday - stunning scenery, great activities, excellent food. Brownie points secured. Especially when these family activities include encounters with Lammergeiers and Dipper.

It was enjoyable just to hang around in the garden, that was full of birds. Western Subalpine, Western Bonelli's and Melodious Warblers seem to have all bred there. Pied Flys, both redstarts, Crested Tits and Short-toed Treecreepers - quite good fun.

Western Bonelli's

Western Subalpine

Short-toed Treecreeper always being a nightmare to photograph

Crested Tit

Baby Common Redstart

The garden was buzzing with butterflies, especially the unmown sections. I was using only my 400mm/f5.6 which isn't great for butterflies...

Lang's Short-tiled Blue

Chalkhill Blue

Wall Brown on a wall

Life is good, drinking a cold cerveza while enjoying such views

My morning birding sessions were a bit challenging. Thanks to Franco and his support of the Nazis in WW2, it was dark until 7am! Therefore I had limited time for birding before the family activities began. I spent a couple of early mornings on Rasos de Peguera, the nearest ski resort. It wasn't high enough up there for proper mountain birds (1900 m), but certainly had this high-altitude feel, distinctly different from the mid-elevation village where we stayed. 

Most dominant birds up there were Crossbills - flocks were moving around noisily, some perched nicely. I enjoyed watching them in their different ages and plumages - they're not a bird I am very familiar with. In Israel they are very rare and irregular. Also in Norfolk they aren't too apparent. It was good to take in their flight calls and silhouettes.

Someone's ringing them up there - two of these random birds I photographed were ringed. 

Another quality bird (for me) up there was Citril Finch. This is another species I haven't seen many times before, and never managed to photograph. Even this photo isn't great - at least it's something.

Butterflies were abundant there too, including many Grizzled Skippers and the magnificent Cardinal.

This photo was taken by my son Uri:

Pyrenean Chamoix

Then it was down to scorching-hot Barcelona. I acted like a stupid tourist for a bit, however typically while admiring the Segrada Familia I was more interested in the Peregrine flying above.

View of the city from Parc Güell at 40 degrees

The little birding I did in Barcelona was half productive. Annoyingly, Delta del Llobregat doesn't open up before 9am (!), when the heat was already unbearable. I did spend a relaxed and muy fun morning with my close friends Rafa and Alejandra (Rafa - it's A-Le-Jand-Ra, OK?). Birding was nice, nothing too especial.

Audouin's Gull 8M95

Even though I don't really do Category C birds, It would have been rude not to look for the small population of Black-rumped Waxbills that have taken up residence in Parc del Turó del Putxet. So I did, to maintain the checklist streak. And Mitred Parakeets were abundant.

Thanks to my family and to the Chittendens for all the fun we had together!

Gull and turtle

Yesterday morning I went with Piki to Zikim Beach, hoping to connect with the Audouin's Gull present there for a few days now. At first the beach was gull-free. We joined the finder Gabi Levitzky and shortly after I spotted a gull heading south towards us over the water - long bill, sloping forehead, silver back - it's the bird! It made a nice flyby, displaying its immaculate 2cy plumage and dark legs. What a classy bird:

Looks like s*&t

It landed further south on the beach, just behind the fence of the security zone north of the Gaza border. It joined a small group of gulls that included 2 Yellow-legs and 1 rogue Baltic.

Dwarfed by a Yellow-legged Gull

We inched closer carefully, and eventually reached a reasonable distance. This gave us a good opportunity to study the finer plumage details.

We left the bird in peace on the horribly-polluted beach. Environmentally, it is quite depressing there - all this rubbish washed up on the beach originates in Gaza. 

Audouin's Gull is a rare visitor to Israel, just about annual, almost exclusively along the Mediterranean Coast. It is surprisingly rare in Israel, as it breeds in Cyprus, about 350 km away only. It was a year tick for me (in Israel), and a fine bird it was. Other than that we did not see too much - eBird checklist here.

We met up with Koby, the local NPA ranger. We joined him to translocate a Loggerhead Turtle nest found that morning. This section of the beach is closed off to vehicles. Tyre marks in the pic below belong to the ranger's pickup who scans the beaches every morning for signs of female turtles beaching for egg-laying, like the tracks of our female:

Nests are translocated to protect them from predation - there is serious predation risk by foxes and jackals. We dug up all 51 eggs, and placed them carefully in a bucket for translocation:

Piki, Koby and Bamba (in the back of the pickup)

The eggs are like soft-shelled ping pong balls

The eggs were placed in a new nest, within a predator-proof enclosure nearby:

Good luck to the little ones in about 60 days! Kudos to INPA and to Koby for this hard work sustaining the Sea Turtle population in Israel.

Foreign visitors to the Algarve

Yesterday we took our day off and replaced the steppes of Alentejo with the saltmarshes, beaches and lagoons of the Algarve. It was a long and brilliant day, packed with quality stuff. We left very early to arrive at our first site, Salinas do Forte do Rato in Tavira in good time. It was pretty birdy there with lots of common shorebirds, some gulls and terns etc. Highlights for me were Iberian Yellow Wagtail that showed nicely, a flyby Audouin's Gull, and the best find of our day was this Roseate Tern in the bay - a pretty good record for mainland Portugal.

Iberian Yellow Wagtail

Roseate Tern - digiscoped from a long distance

Curlew Sandpiper getting into nice summer plumage

The local photographers learned the trick and placed ugly sticks in the middle of the dry saltpans for Bee-eaters to perch:

It was fun birding with Dan - he get's so excited (SIKKKKK!) by common Mediterranean species like Sardinina Warbler and Serin - his excitement infected me and I papped this Serin too:

In the bushes there were very few migrants, but these Common Waxbills were entertaining - our first sexy Cat C species of the day, such lovely birds aren't they?

We wanted to get to the Atlantic Coast to do some seawtaching and look for gulls on the beach. On Google Marta Rota looked like a good option but in fact there was nothing there, between the millions of people. We then made the right decision and joined local birders Thijs and Bruno. We did a quick circuit of the nature walk at the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa headquarters in Quinta de Marim, Olhão. It was very hot and we didn't see much of interest, but added a few species to our growing day and Portugal list. Non-bird hightlight was this fine butterfly - Spanish Festoon (Zerynthia rumina):

 We then headed over to Quinta do Lago. What a strange place. Within the Beverly Hills of Portugal, the golf course lagoons are packed with birds. The specific lagoon where we visited hosted a Little Crake in the past couple of weeks, a national rarity. We halfheartedly searched for it, but I really enjoyed the huge number of very tame birds. Sadly, our failure with crakes continued later on.

Red-crested Pochard - a fine duck!

Snipe with one of the many tarrapins there

Purple Golf-chicken (AKA Western Swamphen)

Black-headed Weaver - what a stunner!

We had a quick look at Lagoa de Almargem, where we had several Audouin's Gulls. Quality! Terrible light and heat haze...

After a quick lunch we headed over to Silves, and tried our luck with the Sora. It was still reported last week, so we had hopes that it stayed. But we arrived there in high tide which is not right to look for it, and indeed we did not find it. 

Our next stop was Portimão Harbour, where the American Herring Gull is or was. The individual we saw is not going anywhere with its terrible wings. It was hanging around with all the other miserable gulls in the gull-hospice of Portimão. So many missing wings, legs, feet, fingers etc. The broken gulls there reminded me of the broken toys scene in Toy Story.

This is not an easy gull. I need to do some homework on it, but I must say I feel uneasy with the ID of this specific individual as American Herring Gull. This individual has a thin red orbital ring; and the leg colour - I am not sure what it is. Not pink, not yellow, some non-descript colour. Is it the same individual that was identified in winter? I am not sure. It could be a Yellow-legged Gull. On the other hand, the wing pattern is identical (but what terrible accident happened to it since?). Is it possible that with maturity and breeding season hormones it developed some yellow bill and a thin red orbital ring? Need to see - there is an interesting discussion on this bird in the Euro Gull Facebook group.

Compare the wing pattern to the photo here - identical

Most other gulls were standard Yellow-legs, and quite a few intermedius / graellsii Lesser Black-backs:

Anyway, after we had enough of the morbid gull experience, we headed over to Lagoa dos Salgados that was fantastic. Highlight was a fine drake Ring-necked Duck that had been found a few days ago (my second in the WP), but there was lots more to see. The lagoon held several Audouin's Gulls and Collared Pratincoles, and the few minutes of seawatching produced a Balearic Shearwater, two Great Skuas and a late Razorbill.

Ring-necked Duck

Digiscoped attempt

We headed back to Silves for a last try, but the tide was still high and no joy for us. Then the drive back to Castro Verde, and back to the steppes. More on that soon.

Many thanks to Thijs and Bruno for their help and company - a superb day. Two or three WP ticks, if you count Cat C's - not bad?