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29th March
The last day in Spain
Digi-binned (I don't know what that
means) Black Stork
It wasn't really our last day in Spain, but it was our
last day of birding before we went back to Madrid for a
few days, so you'll be overjoyed to know that this is
indeed the last entry in the most protracted trip report
in history - and my God (metaphorically) what a mediocre trip report it's been!
Let's think back and recount all of the many highs...
... ahem, we thought we'd finish up birding at Monfrague seeing as
the two other visits had been so good, and there was
also some unsettled Eagle business...
Booted Eagle (a pale one)
... no not that Eagle. So far we'd seen four species of
Eagle (Spanish Imperial, Golden, Short-toed and Booted)
but Bonelli's was playing hard to get. The Puente de Cardenal is supposedly a really good site for them, so
we went, and we waited... Alpine Swifts had
arrived in good numbers since our last visit, as had
Red-rumped Swallows, in fact I made this extremely
incisive observation in my birdspotting jotter:
rr swallow - common. recent influx
But nicht Bonelli's Eagle. Not to worry, it wasn't a
lifer and we'll see them again, just enjoy what's
around, because next week it'll be back to wandering
over the moors in the piss-pouring rain watching Red
Grouse and Meadow Pipits - if I'm lucky. And then two
raptors soared slowly over the ridge and out over the
middle of the reservoir...
...well ejaculate all over my decaying
great-grandmother's corpse! Two Bonelli's Eagles!
Truly marvellous and most fortuitous.
Bonelli's Eagle - note everything
you're supposed to note
Marvellous indeed! Time for some food, after all we must
have been out birding at least 30 minutes by now
(EXTREME!), so we feasted on kidney pie and oxtail,
washed down with punch and warm milk. The weather was
incredible, and there was nothing better to do than sit
in a shallow valley just before the Fuente de los
Tres Cano viewpoint and watch Vultures of all three
variety constantly pass over...
Egyptian Vulture
... and listen to Dartford and Sardinian
Warblers scratching away, mashing it up and mixing
it large - I am down with the kids, I mean kidz (three
cheers for iPods, knife crime and unprotected sex on
park benches!). But one bit of sylvia scratching
was unlike the other two, it was far too musical, even a
bit Blackbirdy... hmmm... then there were two birds
singing... but where the fuck were they? One seemed
slightly closer than the other, so we attacked either
side of a small group of trees in a classic pincer
movement taken straight from Rommel's diaries. And what
did we eventually manage to find? Orphean Warbler
- a nice big bastard of a male! Or, should I say,
Western Orphean Warbler. Should I say Western Orphean
Warbler? I've seen Eastern Orphean Warbler before, but
these Westerns were a first. Do I get a tick? I could
have a look in Shirihai's Sylvia Warblers, only
the last time I did that I opened it up, saw £60 written
on the inside jacket, and then threw the fucking thing
out the window in despair - sixty fucking quid? SIXTY
FUCKING QUID??? Jesus H.Christ! I could have bought a
six bedroom detached house for that. So two (Western)
Orphean Warblers, spectacular! The next viewpoint had a
couple of Spanish birders who spoke near perfect English
and put us onto a Black Vulture nest - excellent work!
And so I repaid them by showing them the Eagle Owls (in
not so perfect Spanish) at Portilla de Tietar,
where tonight an adult was getting grief from a pair of
very, very, very, very, very stupid Ravens:
The two Spanish birders were absolutely over the Moon
with seeing an adult, so much so that they began to tell
me exactly where to find bucket loads of awesome local
birds (some I didn't even know were in the area) include
Wallcreepers! Fucking Wallcreepers - and
typically we were pissing off back to Madrid the next
day! Why didn't we meet them the week before? Jesus
Titty-Fucking Christ!
Some neat graffiti - note the
internationally recognisable smoking spliff and
cock+balls motifs
Rock Bunting
Not to complain though (fucking WALLCREEPERS!!!), Eagle
Owls were a brilliant end to a brilliant week of Spanish
birdspotting. The final morning at the Finca Santa Marta
was memorable for all the right reasons - our bill
turned out to be a fair bit cheaper than we were
expecting. Hoorah! So there you go. That was Extremadura,
hope you enjoyed it, but don't really care if you
didn't. There's only one bird to finish with, and that's
WALLCREEPER, but unfortunately not in this trip
report. "Trip report?" Don't make me laugh.
Anyway, here's a Stork:
And here's what happens when you think drinking beer
before wine will make you feel fine:
And this illustrates what happens when you're born
retarded and think you're that bloke from Nazareth:
28th March
The Penultimate Birding Day
Trujillo
The reason we'd failed
miserably with Sandgrouse was probably down to the
rather tardy starts to the birdspotting days. In fact, I
don't think we once made it out on the road before 10am.
Hardcore. So today was going to be an early start and
those bastard Sandgrouse were going to be nailed. And
then we started drinking this weird lemon brandy the
night before and... out on the road about 10am...
Those plains out by Santa
Marta de Magsasca are really good, like really good.
Today there were 35 Great Bustards, including a foam
bathing maniac:
This is
supposed to...
... make
gentlemen Great Bustards...
...look
hot to any nearby females.
11 Montagu's Harriers in one
field today, and an impressive flock of 100+ Cattle
Egrets, also the usual ridiculous numbers of
raptors, Calandra Larks, Great Spotted Cuckoos,
etc etc etc... A genuinely amazing place. And then
frustration. A Pin-tailed Sandgrouse was calling
not too far from us, only it was completely and utterly
invisible. It must have flown behind a small ridge, and
that was that. We later heard from local birder John
Muddeman that some friends of his were at that very spot
first thing in the morning and had reasonable numbers of
Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, so there you go, that's what
happens if you don't get your lazy arses out of bed and
out looking for birds. Bone idle pair of bastards that
we are.
Well there you have it, a salutary
lesson in how not to watch birds. Had to go back to
Trujillo for one final look at the Lesser Kestrels,
there were over twenty showing fantastically well over
the square, and then back to Finca Santa Marta to have a
wander around the vast olive groves. Azure-winged
Magpies were about heading to roost in impressive
numbers, my first Cuckoo of 2008 called,
Short-toed Treecreepers and Scops Owls were
both out about calling close to dusk and there was a
Black-winged Stilt on a crappy little dirty puddle
sharing space with two Red-eared Terrapins:
There was also a Dachshund called
Brandi:
It liked to chew pine cones:
27th March
Judgement Day
Guadalupe Monastery (no I don't know why we went)
Way back in the last century when we took a birdspotting
trip to India, we kind of felt obliged to visit the Taj
Mahal, mainly because my cousin had said how good it was
and because Princess Diana had been there. And so,
reluctantly, we took a day off birding at the phenomenal
Keoladeo National Park (aka Bharatpur) and went to have
a look at the big stupid white building. Turns out that
it was absolutely fucking incredible, so good that we
made a second visit just before going back home. So ever
since then we've made an effort to visit these tourist
monstrosities, Guadalupe monastery being one of them.
Mistake. Big mistake. If you're thinking of going then
don't. Poor. It's a big stop off on the Catholic
pilgrim tour, but even if you're into the whole body
and blood of Christ thing, then I'd skip this place, it
might make you renounce your religion. Heresy and so
forth.
Still, clouds and silver lining, the drive there through
the Sierra de Villuercas was fantastic, plus
Hawfinches flying over the road and a couple of pale
Booted Eagles soaring over the monastery was
mildly entertaining. Time to move on...
On the way to Monfrague we pulled over by a big
reservoir with some reasonable looking Roman ruins. The
Romans are about the only thing I remember from history
lessons at school, mainly because our teacher at the
time was always drunk. Here is how the Roman ruins of
Extremadura would look in a classic school textbook
modified by generations of less than diligent pupils:
Moving on again, and a quick stop at the wetlands south
of Saucedilla conjured up two Little Bitterns
just by the roadside, at least two Purple Gallinules
and three Savi's Warblers, among other things,
but I live in fear of carpal tunnel syndrome should I
attempt to write them all out.
Savi's Warbler
Anyhow, the whole day was really treading water for the
main event, another go at a proper not-at-all-hidden
view of an adult Eagle Owl at Monfrague on the Portilla
de Tietar cliff face. The weather was perfect this
evening, and the very first bird I saw after leaving the
car was a Spanish Imperial Eagle, followed by a
Black Stork. Thankfully, being evening,
there were only a few people at the viewpoint, and I set
to scanning every square inch of the cliff face. Didn't
take too long to find this:
adult Eagle Owl - fuck yeah!
Using my fluent Spanish (which entailed shouting "Buho
Real! Buho Real! Buho Real!" and pointing a lot), I
told ("told" being a real stretch of the truth here) a
few birders who had there scopes trained on the nest,
which was some distance from where the adult was sat.
They seemed pretty pleased and one even hugged me.
Apparently in all of their regular trips out here they
had never once seen an adult. Well that's obviously why
we English beat the shit out of the Spanish Armada
all those years ago. Is that racist? Not too sure.
Potentially thorny subject even all these centuries on.
Let's leave it well alone.
So, excellent views, but still no real action. Until...
... for some reason the adult woke up and started giving
a pair of Griffon Vultures higher up the cliff a very,
very menacing look - remember Eagle Owls are as big as
bears and have talons the size of meat hooks like the
one in Texas Chainsaw Massacre that Leatherface sticks
that girl on. Not nice. So you really don't want to piss
off an Eagle Owl, even if you're as big as a Griffon
Vulture. But piss it off off they did, and, to all of
our most incredulous surprisement, the adult flew up the
cliff and began a mid air battle with one of the
vultures. Speechlessnessness overcame us all as the Buho
Real tried its very best to bring down the vulture, but
eventually it had to give up and went to check on its
young in the nest. This was all just amazing. And I mean
amazing. I know I talk a lot of shit, but this genuinely
sits very high up in my list of all time great birding
things. Even better than twitching American Coot on
Shetland.
A group of British birders then arrived, and one of them
(a gentleman) kissed me on each of my nipples after
joyously seeing the adult emptying its nest of shit and
puke as the two young chicks squabbled and begged for
food. The Spanish birders look at us in confusion as we
all kissed each other's exposed nipples, as is the
traditional way back home in Blighty. For those
of you planning on going, here's a little bit of
scribbling to help you find the nest:
A genuinely fantastic evening, and as a Rock Bunting
sang we watched the sun set on the undeniable best bird
of the day, a Red-legged Partridge:
That's real art
26th March
Day 5 (five [v])
Warning, this contains photos of an even more terrible
standard than usual. Don't blame me, blame my financial
situation. If I was wedged up (trans: had bags of
cash) then I could buy a pricey DSLR and tell everyone
how amazing it is compared to shitty digiscoping. So
there you go.
Well on this particular day in Spain (remember that's
what this is about? Fuck me, I know this has been
dragging on for a bit, but the least you can do is to
try and remember what country I'm writing about here -
it's the one where people throw donkeys off churches and
stab bulls) we did more driving than birding, in fact we
covered no less than 67,000 miles in a single day! But
by day 5 our birdspotting trip list was now showing up a
huge gap, a massive gaping axe wound seeping
metaphorical juices of an unsavoury nature, and that
huge great big bucket-fanny of a gap was Sandgrouse. In
three attempts we'd fucked up with a 100% failure rate.
Surely the plains of Zorita had to have some? Yeah? Hmmm
...
... err ...
... wait for it ...
... oooooooooh ...
... no. Not one Sandgrouse of either species persuasion
on the plains of Zorita. 21 Great Bustards tried
to cheer us up, but sadly their noble efforts were to
yield no success, and we slumped off with disheartened
hearts to eat a massive pack of dulces tipicos
(cake with 3 tons of sugar in) and then throw up on each
other (but not like in those films you see with Thai
girls, well obviously I haven't seen them, but I've
heard all about them from my uncle Leonard. He likes
that kind of stuff).
"Enough plains!" said I. A landscape less
featureless was required to buck the trend of Sandgrouse-less
negative morale, so water and mountains were sought to
thwart the gradually encroaching bad spirits. Just south
of Zorita lies a vast network of salt pans supposedly
good for watery and wadingy birds, well that was just
the ticket (trans: the thing we needed) and we so we
drove along roads to get there, hurling abuse at
pedestrians as we passed through quaint traditional
crumbling villages. Soon the salt pans were 'pon us
(upon us) only they were all completely bone dry.
Apparently they don't get flooded until later in spring,
and so the whole area was just one huge vast featureless
... plain. Another fucking plain! 2 Marsh Harriers
were no consolation, and 2 Little Ringed Plovers
and a Green Sandpiper were lucky they didn't get
a good fucking kicking. But obviously it wasn't their
fault, surely the blame has to rest with Thatcher. The
buck stops there.
"Mountains ... quickly ... I need ... mountains ..."
I wheezed whilst gasping my final breaths, clutching
upwards to the skies, desperately trying to grasp onto
something to hope for, like maybe a big bowl of Ready
Brek or some fig rolls. It was desperate. Moderately
high altitudes were quickly obtained, and we were soon
to be pulled over on the roadside just outside the
village of Logrosan where we watched no less than 25
Bee-eaters, a bird which NEVER loses its extreme
high quality properties. A quick stop around here also
notched up Southern Grey and Woodchat Shrikes,
a few Sardinian Warbler and plenty of
Fan-tailed Warblers, all of which would be
blow-up-your-grandmother's-tits fantastic in England,
yet are pretty much arse common over here. Spain rocks.
After Logrosan the road began to climb steepishly, and
at times it was like being in a Bond film driving
through mountain passes in Switzerland in an Aston
Martin, being chased by a blond assassin and having to
wear a corset so that nobody could tell that I was an
ageing actor in my 60s and chronically out of shape.
Only we were driving a Vauxhall Corsa, but other than
that it was exactly the same. Being up high in the
Sierra de Villuercas was great, really great - do you
want to know more? Well stopping at various nice looking
places we were to be blessed with three marvellous
additions to the holiday list in the form of Cirl
Bunting, Nuthatch and Jay, before the
spooky crags of Cabanas de Castilla lay ahead:
Cabanas de Castilla
There's supposed to be Black Wheatear at the base of the
crags, but just look how far away that is! And you can't
drive up to them, oh no, you have to fucking walk! Well
bollocks to that. We just sat and waited to see what
would happen. Blue Rock Thrush popped up,
Firecrests were around, there were cazillions of
Short-toed Treecreepers, and also a decent selection
raptors such as all three vultures and a few of these
hanging in the wind:
Short-toed Eagle
Sadly no Bonelli's Eagles, but I later heard that this
place isn't as good for them as it used to be, though
you can still see Bonelli's in the area, just not there.
So where next? Well after a long long long long long
drive we eventually finished up just north of Monroy at
the legendary Black-shouldered Kite site, the best place
in the known universe for Black-shouldered Kite. A site
so reliable for them that nobody has ever gone there and
not seen Black-shouldered Kite. Nobody. Ever... hmmmm
...
... err ...
... wait for it ...
... ooohhhhhh ...
... oh piss off! Yes, we had excellent views (they
really were excellent views, though this shit photo may
suggest otherwise):
Black-shouldered Kite
The bird name Gestapo are trying to get everyone calling
these birds Black-winged Kites because the black isn't
actually on the shoulders it's on the wing - fuck you!
They're called Black-shouldered Kites, and you can fuck
off with your standardised wanky names which never catch
on anyway, just look at Winter Wren, Barn Swallow and
Red-breasted Christmas-Chat.
Be sure to come back soon for day 6, where there'll be
even more appalling photographs, a couple of virgins,
two poached eggs and one of my definite all time birding
highlights.
25th March
Day 4? ... err... can't remember now
Belen plains
After checking out of the
Hotel Victoria
in Trujillo we went for breakfast at a place next door
which served breakfast on tables with chairs tucked
under the table that you had to pull out from under the
table in order to sit down at the table and eat your
breakfast - these crazy Spaniards! As it was our last
morning staying in Trujillo we had an extra big
breakfast (4 litres of jam, 76 slices of toast, 14 cups of coffee) and then set off
to the Belen Plains to be sick.
After negotiating the tight squeeze through Belen
village we were out onto yet another crappy featureless barren
flat load of shitty old farmland. Calandra and
Crested Larks were frighteningly common, even more
frightening than that film about that girl who can turn
her head around 360 degrees, throws up on priests and
inserts religious shaped objects inside herself. What's
it called? Flashdance, that's the one. Terrifying. A
Little Owl calling from some farm buildings wasn't
very frightening, obviously, and neither was a
Southern Grey Shrike nor the huge numbers of
Spotless Starlings.
Further away from the village it was time to regularly
stop and scan. Griffon Vultures, Red and
Black Kites were abundant to say the least, 3
Buzzards drifted over, there was plenty of nesting
White Storks and a big Cattle Egret
colony, but soon the superstar bird of the day (of any
day) took a wander across the plains, a fantastic male
Great Bustard:
Brilliant birds, in fact every bird should aspire to be
a Great Bustard, then the whole world would be amazing
and there'd be no wars or suffering or Madonna. Further
along the road (there's only one road) there were yet
more amazing bustards shimmering in the haze:
Some of which were clearly painted by a mad French
Absinthe drinking impressionist:
Arty Bustards (not to be confused with gangsta rappa Party Arty, or else he'll pop a cap in yo
ass, beeatch)
Only one Little Bustard was a bit disappointing,
but there was still plenty of other birdy treats on
either side of the road and up in the sky, treats such
as quite a few Spanish Sparrows, Short-toed
Eagle, Black Vulture and definitely not
forgetting this:
adult Great Spotted Cuckoo
Plenty of Griffon Vultures seemed to be taking an
unusual interest in us, perhaps we had a smell of death
upon us (birds can't smell though can they? or is that
dogs?), perhaps it was my Sun-singed flesh, or perhaps I
hadn't washed my nuts that morning? Anyhow, it reminded
me of a bit from a brilliant travel book I read - Inca Kola
by Matthew Parris (the one-time Tory MP in Thatcher's
80s - shameful!).
He's in Peru hiking in the central Andes when a couple
of enormous Andean Condors come cruising past, and his
mate suggests that he should fall to his knees and fake his own death to bring
the Condors in closer. Amazingly it works, only Parris
then decides that they're coming far too close for
comfort and gives it up before the beasts rip his eyes
out. Well I had to give it a try myself:
It didn't work. Are you surprised? Neither was I. It
turned out that the vultures had found a dead sheep
nearby:
So that was the Belen plains, and I've not even once
mentioned that Belen sounds a bit similar to bellend,
until now.
After a light lunch (just 3 kilos of cheese, 4 pigs of
ham and only 7 litres of coffee) we took another drive
out to the plains near to Santa Marta de Magasca,
this time with one simple objective: Sandgrouse. We
didn't see any, or hear any, or even sense any. Shame.
Not that we didn't have a good time though, oh no, not
at all, indeed, if you know. How can you not have a good
time when there's Northern Wheatear...
...and a gorgeous male western Black-eared Wheatear:
Also on the plains were 13 Little Bustards and 19
Great Bustards, an immature Golden Eagle,
a wicky-wicky-wah-wah-yo-yo-bang-bang Peregrine
sat on a rock, 2 Short-toed Eagles, 5
Montagu's Harriers and a further 7 raptors making a
grand total of 11. Plus Southern Grey Shrike, 2
Black-winged Stilts, Crag Martins, 3
Golden Plovers, Green Sandpiper, Calandra,
Crested and Thekla Larks in their
trillions, and - best of all - a Little Grebe.
Not a bad selection in just over an hour, though no
fucking bastard Sandgrouse.
And thus from there we did go thus to the
Finca Santa Marta, a thus distinctly middle-class
place set thus in some fantastic olive groves. A quick
wander before dusk knocked out 3 calling Scops Owls,
Booted Eagle, 4 Short-toed Treecreepers
and impressive numbers of roosting Azure-winged
Magpies. And that's that. Be sure to come back soon
for the next day (day 5? no idea) when I'll be showing
you how you can make your very own pet dog out of two
empty tubes of toothpaste, some carrot shavings and a
dead pig.
24th March
The day before the fourth day
Monfrague
Let's NOT go to Monfrague on
Easter Monday. That was my suggestion. It was also my
suggestion to go to Monfrague on Easter Monday -
honestly, I'm like Dr Shipman and Mr Hyde at times!
Didn't really matter though, even with the entire
population of Extremadura out there were still plenty of
birdies.
First stop was at the Arroyo
de la Vid where a Woodlark sang a tune of
melancholy and the infinite sadness, a tune which was
soon shattered by the constant background racket of
bloodcurdling Serins, Azure-winged Magpies,
Hoopoes, nesting Crag Martins and House
Sparrows, only some of the sparrows were those weird
ones with big black splodges all down their front...
err... oh yeah, Spanish Sparrows and five of them
to boot. What does that mean, "to boot"? I don't know.
Or care. Unfortunately the wind was still blowing a
howling gale and I feared that raptoring could be a
total waste of time, about which time 55,000 Griffon
Vultures came over.
Arroyo de
la Vid
The castle would have been
great if you didn't have to walk up to it (have these
Spaniards not heard of escalators?), but for close views
of inquisitive drive-by Griffon Vultures it's
probably unparalleled throughout all of the universe and
beyond. The walk up to the castle was windy, very windy,
but there was still Black Redstart, a few hundred
thousand Short-toed Treecreepers, a massive fall
of about eight billion Blackcaps, Red-rumped
Swallows and the odd Black Vulture passing
over. You can't forget the immense number of Serins
all over the place either, but with counselling it might
be possible.
Griffon Vultures on Pena Falcon
The famous (ish) Pena Falcon rock face
is also known as Salto de Gitano, translated The Gypsy's
Leap. Honestly, that's true. But did you also know that
Iron Maiden were originally called Gypsies Kiss? Iron
Maiden rule, and so did Salto de Gitano. Despite the
crowds there was still loads of birdspotting adventures
to be had both above (loooooooads of Vultures, all three
species) and below:
Blue Rock Thrush "Helloooooooooooo"
When you've been watching so
many White Storks you're kind of shocked when something
similar but not all that similar suddenly comes into
view, namely Black Stork. Black Storks are
brilliant, best birds ever, without question (other than
a few others), so when one swooped in from the skies
above and flew about over the reservoir below, it was
just too much to handle and I had to kick myself in the
nuts, kind of as a reality check. But when it did some
more swooping and then went to visit its special friend
sat on a nest, well, more kicks in the nuts were
certainly required.
Black Stork on its
nest - self explanatory really
There was also another Black Redstart, which by
now were bordering on irritating:
Just past the Punte de Cardenal we
pulled in and hoped with all our hope that we might get
Bonelli's Eagle. I'd only ever seen Bonelli's Eagle
before in India, and I was so ill at the time that after
having shit myself inside out eleven times in a row, the
enjoyment was kind of tainted by having to push my
innards back inside my rectum, if you follow me. Sadly
there were no Bonelli's Eagle, I blame the wind. But
there was a nice singing male Subalpine Warbler,
the first Short-toed Eagle of the trip, and a
great big boomerang of an Alpine Swift making a
fool of the feeble House Martins which were
nesting in their trillions on the side of the bridge.
Spanish Imperial Eagle used to
breed at the Mirador de la Bascula, not this year
though, but it was worth a stop for the good views of
Black Vulture, Azure-winged Magpies, and
then... something singing... can it be?... I'm sure
that's a... Spectacled Warbler. Sweet, and a
decent looking male as well, the only one we had all
trip.
Last stop was at the Portilla
de Tietar, supposedly the best place in the world for
Spanish Imperial Eagle, or at least it was when they
bred just to the right of the cliff. They don't breed
there anymore. Still, this seems to be the hang out
point for everyone in Spain wanting to try out that
hilarious echo thing, you know, when you shout hello as
loud as possible, only the Spanish shout something
different:
HOLA...
HOLA...
hola...
hola...
hola...
It's a really brilliant way of getting
rid of any birds in the area. Nesting Griffon
Vultures didn't seem to mind though:
I did mind, however, and so we marched off away from the
crowds and watched another Blue Rock Thrush and
another Black Stork. I'd been told exactly where
Eagle Owls were breeding on the cliff face and picked
out what I assumed was the nest, but there was no
action, and so it seemed that today we would miss out on
both Imperial Eagle and Eagle Owl. Oh well, there's
always another time. And then this came over just above
us:
Aguila
Imperial Iberica!
Nice, the most endangered bird
in the world, Spanish Imperial Eagle. And so,
despite the immense crowds, it was a pretty good day,
but things were to get a lot better, and I mean a lot
better, when we pulled into a motorway service station
and had a cheese and ham bocadillo - now we mean
business. I was also extremely impressed with the amount
of litter in here, with some customers choosing to throw
most of their food on the floor as well. I threw my
camera on the floor again, again not on purpose. After
throwing up on the floor (nothing to do with the food,
just thought I'd try and fit in) it was time to move on,
this time to Embalse de Arroyocampo to see some watery
birds. This Crested Lark (one of approximately 98
billion in the area) was sat just by the car:
A quick scan of the tops of the reeds
notched up no less than 4 singing Savi's Warblers
(ie more than 4, but not much more, let's say 5, no fuck
it, let's say 7. 10? No that's just stupid), a Purple
Heron dropped in never to be seen again and
Fan-tailed Warblers were... you know... I was
watching a Marsh Harrier flying along the back of
the reeds when Miss Cole announced: "I've got a Great
White Egret flying." Yeah right! "No you
haven't," said I. "Yes I have," said she.
"No you haven't, you don't get them here, it'll be a
Cattle Egret," said I. "It's huge," said she.
"Yeah, that'll just be the light," said I.
"Fair enough," said she. At which point a Great
White Egret flew past the Marsh Harrier I watching,
and so that pretty much pissed on my chips. I later
found out that there were 4 Great White Egrets in the
area. A Little Bittern shot up (I mean it was
flushed, not pathetically copying Pete Doherty) and
quickly vanished from a gap in the trees just by the
roadside, and strange, strange sounds emanating from
deep within could only mean one thing:
Purple
Gallinule (blue swamp chicken)
A drive back via Puerto de la Miravete
in the hope of Black Wheatear was in vain, though a
mental Crested Tit was so aggressive around us
that we decided to get out quick before it smashed the
car up and set us on fire. They're real bastards for
that kind of thing.
23rd March
The Second Day (ie the day after the day we arrived)
Southern Grey Shrike
Easter Sunday, traditionally the biggest piss up in the
Christian calendar. Us Brits eat chocolate eggs and
dispose of five tons of wasted packaging per household,
the Austrians roll decorated boiled eggs down a slanting
plank of wood, and the Spanish dress up as Ku Klux
Klansmen, get slaughtered on ale, throw a donkey off a
church and trash everywhere. We're all mad. But what
better thing is there to do to commemorate the holiest
of holy days than to go out birding on the plains around
the village of Santa Marta de Magasca? None, and even if
there was, fuck it.
It was a super early start (about 10am - we were on
holiday and had to eat lots of breakfast, I had eight
litres of jam) for a big mega full dawn till dusk manic
day's birding. Pulled off the main road and began to
bird the plains along the minor road to the village of
Santa Marta de Magasca - good shit! Stopped in some
dehesa (I'm still not sure what that is, I think it's
small trees or something) and the fest began - bang,
bang, bang! Raptors were everywhere - even hiding in the
car - and after only a few minutes we'd notched up all
three vultures (Griffon, Black and
Egyptian), Red and Black Kite, a
single Merlin whizzed over and there were
Booted Eagles aplenty. The first Woodchat Shrike
was sat in a tree not doing much, and the first
Hoopoe flew under a tree and landed and then didn't
do much either - neither of them ever seem to do very
much. Every scan of the horizon produced swirling groups
of White Storks, and the numbers of Black
Kites and Griffon Vultures was quite simply
stupid. There were also tons of Woodpigeons,
always a highlight for me.
Moving further on towards the plains, Spotless
Starlings became shit common, and plenty of
Azure-winged Magpies were trying to sell us property
on the Algarve - "be gone!" I shouted at them.
The plains were just as I expected - flat and plain,
with some sky above and grassy stuff below. Here's a
picture to illustrate what I mean:
What you don't get from the picture above is how cold it
was. I'm talking like freezing cold. And it was all the
fault of the wind, the cold wind, which made it cold,
the wind, cold, blowing cold wind. You get the idea.
After only a short while the first target bird was
picked up - el Bustardo Grande (trans: Great Bustard).
There were three immense males, but they were a bit
distant and the haze had already kicked in - must try
harder. The first Southern Grey Shrike popped up
and then there was a sudden mad screaming cackle from
the nearby trees - Great Spotted Cuckoo. Couldn't
see it though, shame, real shame. A bit further along
and a huge beast of a Great Bustard flew parallel
with the car, before 27 Little Bustards came whizzing
over and did a little circuit overhead just to show off.
Calandra Larks were genuinely shit common, but
many of them were irritatingly mimicking Black-bellied
Sandgrouse, of which there were none, unless there were
Sandgrouse calling but I thought it was the Calandra
Larks? Fucking bastard birds.
Dropping into a wooded valley we notched up the first
Sardinian Warbler, and were again taunted by a
screaming Great Spotted Cuckoo - not getting away
this time though, and after being battered by a
Magpie a nice juvenile bird flew past and landed
briefly... wait for it... in a tree. Thekla Larks
started popping up and then there was this:
This is a Black Kite, yeah? Is it? When we were watching
it we never thought anything otherwise, but Holy Jesus
it looks pretty reddish. Plenty of black on the bill
though, so it is a Black Kite, yeah? Hmmm... Anyway,
this is definitely a Thekla Lark (fuck off anyone
who disagrees!):
More plains and more plainy birds, and then a sudden
change of "habo" (cool birding slang for habitat, I'm
one of the in-crowd you see, I've even got a woollen hat
saying Cream-coloured Courser 2004 on it [I
haven't really]) as we dropped down to a bridge. A
Black Redstart dived for covered as I made as much
noise as possible getting out of the car (I always do,
it helps clear all the birds off), an invisible
Kingfisher was down by the riverside and a
Woodlark sang a beautiful tune that reminded me of
drinking Ribena. But vandals, probably bloody kids with
their fucking skateboards, iPods and much easier exams
at school than we took, had been throwing mud at the
bridge - kids today eh! - but some clever Crag
Martins had capitalised on this wanton act of
destruction and learnt to call the bridge home:
That was enough river for one day, bastard fresh water,
we hadn't come all the way to Spain to sit by a fucking
river! Back onto the plains and 6 more strutting
Great Bustards were this time showing well, but 6
Little Bustards weren't showing very well, and so I
cried. Montagu's Harriers were showing
well, all six of them. We found a nest and egged it,
even though there were no eggs in:
It was now about 3pm and something was starting to annoy
me. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just felt a
bit wrong, and then I realised I'd been burnt, fucking
Sun! I was as burnt as that time Michael Jackson blew
himself up filming the Pepsi advert - ha, served him
right for being a slave to the capitalist machine! Light
refreshment was needed, and so was sun cream, though it
was far too late for that now. Back in Trujillo all
manner of mad shit had broken loose:
Everyone was standing around celebrating the Holy Day of
our Lord (Jesus, not that fat cunt Lloyd Webber) by
holding aloft pink horse-shaped helium balloons, as has
been traditional for over 2,000 years. Up on the top of
the castle you could see plenty of Lesser Kestrels
over the town, and a Pallid Swift took a quick
look down below at the square and then pissed off in
disgust. Disgust? Yes, disgust. What did I tell you
about litter?
Truly disgraceful. I shall write to my MP and my MEP,
even though I haven't got one because I'm an anarchist.
The day was finished eating raw garlic and drinking
wine. God I love Spain!
22nd March
Day one (the first day in Spain [ie the day that
we arrived])
Trujillo
Hi everyone, my name's Tom, and along with my spouse
(whose name isn't Tom, it's Sarah) I went to Spain on
holiday to spot birds and eat prawns (you have to eat
prawns on holiday, apparently there's some law about it,
other than in Cuba, it's different there - best to check
your holiday details before you go). To get to Spain we
had to fly to Madrid, and to get to Madrid we had to go
to Liverpool airport. At Liverpool airport there's a
bronze statue of that bone idle hippy lay-about John
Lennon (the airport's even named after him - named after
a fucking pacifist coward!), and I made my usual
hilarious comment that I always make whenever I go to
Liverpool airport (which was once before): "Wasn't he
really big," I said (the statue is quite big you
see). Apparently saying it three times is legitimate
grounds for divorce.
At Madrid airport I had my first chance to try out my
near fluent Spanish (B at GCSE thirteen years ago), and
soon managed to find my way to the chaplain's office,
even though I was looking for the car rental offices.
Still, I was on holiday, the sun was shining (not), the
skies were clear blue as far as the eye could see (dull
grey) and never ever forget: faint heart ne'er won fair
maid! And so four hours later, we were on the road
cruising down the highway heading straight for Trujillo.
But this is the best bit, I had somehow misplaced my
driving licence before going away, and so Miss Cole had
to do all of the driving for the whole holiday - talk
about shitting yourself inside-out!
Once we were out of Madrid and onto the open plains,
we soon began to realise why Spain is considered the
birding Mecca of south-west Mediterranean Europe
excluding France and Portgual, because there were
Woodpigeons absolutely everywhere. In fact, I'd
never ever seen so many Woodpigeons before, ever (other
than in Lincolnshire a few years back). I was also
relieved to see the grand golden arches of McDonald's:
"at least we shan't starve, oh wife of mine!"
said I.
Driving into Extremadura the roadside birds
soon began to get all dead good and everything. White
Storks were all over the place, Black Kites
as well, not forgetting Black-winged Stilts,
Cattle Egrets, Crested Larks... you know
the score. And then as we passed signs for the Parque
Natural de Monfrague Griffon Vultures were just
hanging about floating on the thermals waiting for
something to die, like they do, the rotten swines.
It took just over two hours to get to Trujillo, and
then the fun began - we had to find somewhere to park.
It wasn't much fun. Amazingly the car wasn't written
off, and after dumping our luggage in the Hotel Victoria
we were off and out to see Trujillo, albeit in separate
directions (neither of us were speaking after an
argument over where to park - I suggested that the car
should be stopped immediately so that we wouldn't die,
and Miss Cole's response was something along the lines
of: "I swear to God I'll rip your nuts off if you
criticise my driving one more fucking time!").
Trujillo is excellent. I shall elaborate: it's
excellent in a really excellent way. That's enough
elaboration. Here's a pair of White Storks up to no good
on the top of a building:
That was more than enough sightseeing for one day, it
was time for a drink. There were plenty of really nice
bars and cafes in the main square, but there was also a
gloomy shit hole of a bar at the bottom of the town
filled with old drunks, so that's where we went. After
only a short period of time I was reacquainted with that
most quintessential Spanish tradition, littering. You
can't call yourself a true Spaniard unless you throw as
much rubbish onto the floor as possible. Tissues, olive
pips, nut shells, bottles, in fact anything and
everything must all be thrown onto the floor. If you
don't throw things on the floor then you'll stick out
like a cat with a sore thumb amongst the pigeons (of
which there was also one outside). I threw my camera on
the floor, but that wasn't on purpose. I think it's
broken now.
The day was concluded eating a big meal of
bread, chips (fries), meat and ice cream, but not all on
the same plate.
11th March
Happy birthday to me (Tom [McKinney, The])
I've just noticed that the background colour has
turned into a strange girly sky blue. How did I do that?
Did I do that? No idea. Still, I think it's a bit better than
the depressing Welsh slate grey it used to be. So yes,
it's my birthday. Hooray, etc... I've got some great
things planned, like watching top BBC medical drama Holby City and then sellotaping a carrier bag over my
head. Should be fun.
Sorry (not) that I haven't updated for a
while, but I was away in Suffolk with potentially the
best birds from a British building window I could have
imagined: 2 full summer Med Gulls, 2 Little Egrets, 58
Avocets, Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Bearded Tits... Suffolk rocks.
Locally things are hotting up, with the moors and
plantations starting to fill with extreme rare breeders;
I can't say anything else, but let's just say that the
rumours of Gyrfalcon being suppressed in north-west
Derbyshire may not be entirely without substance. As for
these constant rumours about me secretly being American
saxophone star Kenny fucking G writing behind a
pseudonym, well, I'll leave to you to decide.
Mega recent bird news has been the rediscovery of
Beck's Petrel. Like anyone cares, though why anyone
would name a bird after that gloomy fucker is beyond
me... "she's alone in the new polluuuuution, ooooh
I'm a twat." Of course the really, really big news
recently is Fidel Castro, whose stepping down has
probably terminated popular Marxism, because let's face
it, Kim Jong-il is never going to be the new Che (to be
immortalised on five quid t-shirts from Primark) if he
keeps insisting on wearing those starched cardboard
trousers. Long live the Communist struggle! Only without
all of the genocide and the war atrocity bits, it's best
just to brush those minor glitches under the carpet. Oh
well, that's life. Some of the most iconic imagery of
our time has come about through the revolution in Latin
America, but let's not forget that in Britain we also
have our own great cult figures:
Vive le revolucion!
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