cross-border raid on Extremedura's booty
Buzzing, and somewhat relieved and surprised that we'd seen the Ruppell's, we headed towards the spanish border, via the spectacularly located hilltop castle/village of Monsanto. We saw lots of Corn Buntings and Spotless Starlings on the way, and our first Iberian Magpie of the trip, a major iberian endemic icon since it's recent split from Azure-winged. Monsanto also produced our first 5 or so Blue Rock Thrushes, a couple of Thekla Larks, and superb views (and pic below) of our second Spanish Festoon. The strangest site here however, was surely a flock of about 50 Blackcaps, feeding frenziedly around a spring in the village. It was nice to hear quite a few Hoopoes calling from the plain below.
We then continued east, for what turned out to be an unexpectedly successful lightning raid on Extremedura in Spain, where I must admit it was nice to encounter junctions with helpful road signs, and to be somewhere where most of the vegetation was less suitable for rosellas, honeyeaters, pardalotes and koalas.
We aimed for Monfrague, mainly of course because there might be other birders there that we could grip off..er.. I mean inform about the Ruppell's vulture. En route to Monfrague our first new for the trip to pop up was a roadside Southern Grey Shrike. We made it to Monfrague that afternoon, and enjoyed a stop at Salto del Gitano, with it's big Griffon Vulture colony, Blue Rock Thrushes, and a nice Black Wheatear, before we continued out of the park to park by the road at Arroyo de la Vid, where we last parked up about 9 years ago. At Salto del Gitano we bumped into some American birders, but unfortunately they'd been to Africa, so were about as interested in the Ruppell's as they were in the Mockingbird that's currently on Gibraltar. Oh well. It was of course Spanish Imperial Eagle and Little Bustard that they were still after.
Next morning (March 16th) the roadside parkup by the arroyo had changed little in 9 years, with the exception that it was overrun with House Sparrows, and there was no sign of the colony of Spanish Sparrows that we stumbled on there last time. Good job we saw the Calshot bird for the trip it seems! A Kingfisher here was, rather oddly, new for the trip, and it was nice to see Red-legged Partridges here, and in the park, where presumably they're safer.
By lunchtime we'd done much better than we expected, especially considering that we'd had pretty good views of Spanish Imperial Eagle (probably the same bird) at 2 lookouts. We first picked one up distantly at around 10.30 from the Higuerilla (spelt wrong?) lookout, as it made a short dive at a Griffon Vulture. It gradually came closer, and was on view for long enough to get quite a few people from a small tour group to see it reasonably well through our scope. It appeared again a couple of times over the Portilar de Tietar (spelt wrong?) lookout when we moved on to there, where we also saw a roosting Eagle Owl, and a stunning Black Stork. This was the first time I'd seen the eagle within the park boundaries of Monfrague, in spite of several days of looking for it here in the past.
Other raptors that morning included 7 Short-toed Eagles, 3+ BlackVultures, 10+ Egyptian Vultures, Black Kites, Kestrels, Buzzard and Sparrowhawk. 4 Hawfinches and a Red-rumped Swallow at the castle above Salto del Gitano area were new for the trip, and that spot also produced Chough, Raven , Iberian Magpie and Crag Martin.
We figured that while we were on a roll we'd move on towards a spot between Trujillo and Cacares, and try for some steppe birds. The Americans had seen Great Bustards the day before, around the junction of the old N521 and C99 roads, a bird we were keen to see that we didn't know where to look for in this part of Spain. Most of the old N521 west of Trujillo is sparsely wooded with Cork Oaks (and/or olives?), but it opens out into steppe and farmland as you get nearer to Caceres. The heat haze was pretty full on, but frequent stops once the steppe started revealed that there were plenty of birds about.
We picked up our first zonkingly majestic Great Bustards a few km east of the junction with the C99. At first two flying birds, that joined two others as we followed them in the bins, then, wow! It ended up being around 50 Great Bustards in the air at once. We explored the first few km of the C99 northeastwards too before we managed to spot a group of about 20 on the deck, surprisingly unobtrusive considering their size and that they weren't that far away. These were great birds to watch using the van as a hide, and we got some pics of them before moving on leaving them to do their thing.
The whole area was heaving with Corn Buntings, larks (mainly Calandra and Crested), and Meadow Pipits. There were also lots of birds of prey, especially kestrels (probably Lessers too?), Buzzards and Black Kites. Also Griffon, Egyptian and Black Vultures, and 2 Merlins, a dark phase Booted Eagle and a Red Kite.
We went on to visit the large lake 8km northeast of Cacares, where we bumped into 2 Great Spotted Cuckoos chasing each other, before being chased by Magpies. This spot was also full of Corn Buntings and Calandra Larks, and plenty of Thekla Larks with some Cresteds for handy comparison. We considered spending the night here, but bleak spots like this near cities can sometimes not make the safest parkups, so we decided to find a place to park in what felt like a non-dodgy edge of Cacares. This proved ideal, as it was within walking distance of the old town plaza, where we could begin our evening out, after one awesome day's birding, drinking beer and watching the White Storks, and Lesser Kestrels chasing the hoards of swooping swifts. There were heaps of Jackdaws here too, and we watched one actually physically strike a Lesser Kestrel in flight. The swifts were typically a nightmare to be sure about, and I could only positively clinch Pallid Swifts here. Anyone know what the ratio should be around Cacares at this time of year?
Next day we thought we'd have a walk around the lake northeast of the city before leaving the area. As it turned out it was much larger than we thought, so we turned back after having walked a few km. We turned round at exactly the right time. On turning round and looking back the other way, a rather distant 15 strong flock of something that had to be something interesting were in view. I raised my bins. Little Bustards! We couldn't believe our luck. I'd just sextupled my life total of this species in one blink. They wheeled around and we followed them for a while, but lost them as they dropped distantly below the horizon. The lake also produced 3 Southern Grey Shrikes, a Little Ringed Plover and a couple of Black-winged Stilts.
We made it back over the portuguese border, to the hilltop fortress of Marvao that afternoon, and wandered around the battlements in the mist before settling in for the night. Here we had quite a surprise when we bumped into a rather damp and dishevelled-looking Alpine Accentor. You can see Portas de Rodao 40km away on a clear day Dan, if you fancy trying your luck with the Ruppell's from here
We have since made it to Lisboa, with a crisp little Brown Argus being the only notable trip addition on the way. Some great live Brazilian music.
So with the hairstreak being a green, we have:
25.Green Hairstreak
26.Brown Argus
and:
160. Corn Bunting
161. Iberian Magpie
162. Blue Rock Thrush
163. Thekla Lark
164. Southern Grey Shrike
165. Black Wheatear
166. Kingfisher
167. Red-rumped Swallow
168. Hawfinch
169. Spanish Imperial Eagle
170. Eagle Owl
171. Red Kite
172. Great Bustard
173. Booted Eagle
174. Merlin
175. Calandra Lark
176. Lesser Kestrel
177. Great Spotted Cuckoo
178. Little Bustard
179. Little Ringed Plover
some pics: 1. Spanish Festoon 2. Griffon eye to eye 3. can anyone id this montfrague frog? 4. Great Bustards