Muchas avutardas y dowitcher!

Quick update from Spain - limited internet access here. 

I want to begin with warm congratulations to the winning teams of the Champions of the Flyway race that took place yesterday in Eilat: Cape May Dippers and the JBO Orioles. Well done! I enjoy Spain very much but during the last few days my heart was in Eilat. Next year.

Yesterday I joined the census team working in the northern part of La Serena, near Orellana and Talarrubia. 

We met at Puebla de Alcocer. The old monastery there is an amazing bird hotel, or maybe better described these days as bird brothel. Everyone was having a good time there - huge rooftop orgy of Lesser Kestrels, White Storks and Spotless Starlings.

A spotless kind of love 

The census itself was rather slow with few Great Bustards (about 50) and no Little Bustards at all. I was impressed though by good density of Montagu's Harriers - up to 30 pairs were seen.

Montagu's Harrier - female

After we were done I headed north to Caceres, towards Sierra de Fuentes. Thanks to info from Rare Birds in Spain, I went to look for the Long-billed Dowitcher that had been present at Embalse de Guadiloba, near Caceres for some days. Took me some time to relocate it, but eventually had good scope views of it. Unfortunately, while I was trying to reposition myself all the flock it was in was spooked by a Marsh Harrier. They all came back (Dunlins, Ringed and Kentish Plovers, Redshanks, Greenshanks and a Blackwit) but the dowitcher. I searched for it for some more time but with no success. Anyway, what a cool bird! Certainly not a WP tick I was expecting to encounter here in Extremadura - I was hopimg to see it in Cley or Eilat.

Long-billed Dowitcher, Embalse de Guadiloba

Today I censused in the beautiful plains of Sierra de Fuentes. This is probably the densest site in Extremadura - we had over 550 Great Bustards today, including some impressive flocks. Still very cold and windy today so display is minimal. Little Bustards are doing pretty bad apparently - only about 50 today.

Quite a few vultures feeding on dead cows and sheep scattered on the plains:

Black Vulture

Sierra de Fuentes

Short trip to Portugal and Spain

Spent the last few days in Portugal and Spain. My PhD project on Great Bustard conservation is gaining speed, and I went over with my supervisors to meet our collaborators in Alentejo and Extremadura. The meetings were very important, friendly and useful, and hospitality was great wherever we were. However, this was my first visit to Iberia, and I was somewhat frustrated by the minimal amount of time I had for birding. In total we drove on one track in castro Verde for about 20 minutes, and had another hour in Campo Maior. That's it. Still managed to get some very casual lifers (Azure-winged Magpie, Thekla Lark, Spotless Starling and Iberian Chiffchaff) and it was good to see some small groups of Great Bustards at Campo Maior and Castro Verde. Also some Little Bustards at Castro Verde. Really enjoyed the large numbers of birds everywhere (like in Israel) - I am really looking forward to spend good amounts of time in the field there in spring.

Great Bustards - males, at Campo Maior, Portugal. It was a sunny day so they were doing some 'stuff' already - getting prepared for lekking season.

Spotless Starling is a common urban bird but I didn't get a chance for a proper photo

Black-winged Kites were reasonably common

Red Kite, Campo Maior

Coming down to land at Lisbon on Sunday:

Campo Maior

Steppe habitats at Castro Verde

Temple of Diana at Evora, Alentejo

Nice place Evora