Hi All,
1. Précis;
We arrived back a couple of weeks ago from a birding
(garden/food/architecture/history) trip to Morocco and Spain via London,
well and truly satiated on all counts.
Birding London's St. James and Hyde Parks and Hampstead Heath was a
wonderful way to work off the jetlag, with almost forty common native
species plus a few alien "pets" in the lakes and a rare vagrant in the
Serpentine (Yellow-legged Gull).
Morocco with Nigel Redman proved to be a great tutorial on
Mediterranean birds, particularly warblers, and we scored all but a few of
the Moroccan possibles, including prolonged "crippling" views of the
elusive Duponts Lark. That trip report should be on the Birdquest website
sometime soon.
We arrived in Spain after a night on the Marrakech - Tangier Express
and a ferry across the Med., did a one car rally around Western Spain, viz,
Donana, Gibralter, Rondo, Alhambra, Cordoba, Trujillo, Monfrague, the
Grados, Pyrenees, and Rioja, ending at San Sebastian/Bilbao. The birding was
terrific; after Morocco and with the help of Collins fieldguide, there
weren't many we couldn't recognise. Even without tapes most of the warblers
came into view with pishing or patience. Our greatest disappointment was
dipping on the White-headed Duck despite sussing out all the recognised
sites, otherwise picked up on most of the wishlist, including the raptors
and Wallcreeper.
Bird lists on London and Spain to follow in separate postings, anyone
wanting the complete Spain trip report let me know.
Cheers
Michael
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www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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