Autumn 2019 passage, Catalunya (1 Viewer)

I thought that I would create this thread for consistency as I've written several over recent years. If anyone else is birding in the region, feel free to add notes.

We've been in Tarragona for Santa Tecla since the 20th. Birding has been limited to early morning walks plus watching the sky intermittently. The balcony rooms at Hotel Plaça de la Font were all taken so I've been coming to the area around the Universitat Rovira i Virgili to the north east of the cathedral where the Roman walls have a few places to sit with views to the north east although the square in front of the university has more comfortable seating albeit more restricted views.

Sightings so far have been limited. Virtually nothing on day one. On the 22nd there were a few swallows and Martin's, a small flock of Grey Wagtails and a Great White Egret, yesterday I saw two kestrels, a Sparrowhawk, a Honey Buzzard and two eagles too faraway to ID. So far this morning one kestrel, an Osprey and a couple of flocks of presumed larks (I didn't recognise the calls) and half a dozen swallows.

Ebro delta tomorrow.

Since my last post there's been a constant passage of Swallows, several hundred, plus a Common Kestrel.

Swallow movement continuing and two more flocks of presumed larks, 10, then 30+ but with some wagtails. Loop

No birding done for the rest of the day but we sat down to watch a concert in Plaça dels Sedassos at about 18:00. There were swallows passing over at a rate of about 1 a second for 10 minutes in the small rectangle of sky visible and more further inland. Two more smaller groups followed with some Alpine Swifts much higher up. One large raptor glimpsed but it disappeared behind a building and didn't reappear.

My last update got lost somewhere but basically said that there were lts of swallows seen during the drive from Tarragona to the delta on the 25th. As expected, high numbers of many species around the delta. Glossy Ibis in probably tens of thousands. Numerous Great White Egrets and many thousands of Cattle Egrets. Slender-billed Gulls seemed more prevalent than in recent years, especially congregating around mud on roads shed from tractor wheels. Few raptors other than Marsh Harriers and Kestrels.

As per last year there were Scops Owls at the Delta hotel and apparently Long-eared Owls in or very close to the grounds, though we couldn't find them.

I found a flock of 6 Whiskered Terns along the road to the left (north) off the T-340 at the Parc Deltaventur roundabout on the 26th and this had increased to about 20 including some Black Terns early on the 27th. I mentioned these to some British birders at the hotel over breakfast (plus the Scops Owl, which they had not heard). Karma kicked in because we went for another look at the terns after checkout and spotted the same birders a little further along the road. The terns were back to about 6 Whiskered but they had also found 2 or possibly three Bluethroats, a Hoopoe (our only one this trip!) and some Collared Pratincoles. We didn't see the praticoles but the other two were very pleasing.

We're back again for 5 days from the 24th. Mainly for a festival again but hopefully there will be birding opportunities.

We're back in Catalunya for a few days, primarily for the festival of Santa Ursula in Valls. We're staying for the first time in L'Espluga de Francoli. It's early on Friday morning (7:45 and still not quite light) and on Tuesday night to Wednesday morning the town and others nearby suffered severe flash flooding that resulted in some loss of life and several buildings being washed away, including the wine celler where we had intended to stock up on goodies for our a stay. We arrived early evening yesterday and the 'disaster tourism' was noticeable to the point where I felt that we were being judged a bit as we walked around town, although we avoided the areas worst affected.

We drove from Barcelona airport to the historical/archaeological site at Castell d'Olérdola. There was an abundance of birds here. Nothing too special, although I was surprised at the number of Alpine Swifts. Loads of Blackcaps and at least two singing Melodious Warblers. I glimpsed a probable Hoopoe between trees. Firecrest, Sardinian Warbler, lots of common woodland birds. The site itself is truly beautiful though and well worth the small effort of driving there. It's bigger than my limited research had led me to believe with evidence from Iberian, Roman and mediaeval cultures. We had a late lunch at Parilla del Pou Nou in Canyelles because the temptingly named Casa del Conills gets some poor reviews. Great value menu del dia.

We're staying at the comfortable and well furnished Ca la Pauleta where there are Black Redstarts. It's light now so time for an early excursion. Prehistoric cave paintings and hopefully the Lleida steppes await.

A pretty good day yesterday even though the birding was a bit haphazard and could have been more commited.

I went out alone for a couple of hours stopping initially at the Poblet monastery which wasn't open to visitors yet but whose doors were open so I went inside figuring that someone would chuck me out of I was transgressing. Nobody did, I got a few nice photos and noted an almost constant stream of finches over.

I then move to the track to Castelll Milmanda. The bridge had been washed out but the river could be crossed with care. Still waiting loads of Chaffinches over, plenty of Linnets, several flocks of Woodpigeon, about 30 Mistle Thrush, some probable larks and two groups of about 20 Bramblings. I walked up the wooded ridge and then to the obvious small group of pines overlooking the 'castle' which is a vineyard and part of the Torres group.

After a look around L'Espluga de Francoli and some breakfast we set off for. El Cogul and Cova dels Moros. When we arrived at the visitor centre there was a sign on the door saying 'call this number if it's opening hours and there's no one here' so we did and a gentleman said he'd be there in 30 minutes. There was a sign saying "Tombes de Saladar 1.3 Kms" so we drove that way noticing a couple of Black Wheatears on the last rocky 'ridge' before the small parking area by the site, which turned out to be several tombs hewn from the rock a few steps from the road.

We're not normally big fans of guided tours or interpretive videos but if you go to Cova dels Moros I can recommend it. The video is short and in Catalan with some Spanish subtitles but anyone of reasonable intelligence should be able to work most of it out.

Our guide then took us to the rock shelter to see the paintings and carvings. Neither of us had seen prehistoric paintings before and we were very impressed.

We didn't take our binoculars but easily picked out a couple of Sub-Alpine Warblers. We assumed that the female/juvenile harrier over was Montagu's.

After lunch we headed to Alfès to look around the area by the aerodrome. Plenty of Calandra Larks and Thekla Larks, lots of Black Kites, a few Northern Wheatears and a party of four or five in the trees by the airfield building. We decided not to risk the full circuit because of some deep looking rainwater surrounded by thick mud on the track so retraced our route and saw a White Stork just before getting back to the C-12. However we found about 50 of them with Cattle Egrets and Red-billed Choughs a few kilometres up the road.

I forgot a single House Martin on our morning walk around L'Espluga de Francoli and we saw both Crag Martin's and Alpine Swifts in Valls when we arrived in the evening for the castells practice. This finished after 01:00 and it was after 02:00 when we got back so no early birding today. The practice was good though.

I remember, as a young boy, worshipping St Ursula.....when she emerged from the sea in Dr No

Laurie:t:

If I see anything like that I'll let you know, Laurie, but past experience suggests that it's unlikely.

Not much birding today. We drove to Sant Pere de Riudebittles for a small cultural festival but mostly to see Castellers de Mediona, a group we hadn't watched before. On the way back we called in at the Pont Nou viaduct, just outside town where there were more Green Woodpeckers, Dartford Warblers and the best views we've had of Western Bonelli's Warblers.

No Ursula Andress spotted today.

Virtually no birding either. We got to Valls early to see a variety of giants and then went to Plaça del Blat for the castells diada. You can't really build human towers with specs on so I'm very limited in my ability to see anything but whenever I glanced up at the sky there was nothing to be seen however my partner who was taking photos did get a pic of a Booted Eagle going over. Bird of the day, almost literally.

The castells were exciting. Both teams put up 3 of 9s without auxillary base. These have never been done before. I think this was the first 'new' human tower to be built since November 2016, so we're pretty pleased with ourselves.

Hopefully real birding tomorrow.

Monday was a pretty good day, although my partner was somewhat unwell which affected our mobility a bit as she was not keen on walking far. We started off west of Bujaraloz at the Hostal del Ciervo where there is a track paralleling the main road. We decided not to drive on this because there was still a lot of mud, so walked for perhaps a kilometre, then returned to the car park area and walked up the wooded ridge to the top. There was an abundance of Dartford Warblers in the area. I can’t recall having seen as many anywhere else. Plenty of Thekla Larks as well. Julie found the only Hoopoe of the trip as we walked up the ridge and there were plenty of Firecrests amongst the yews and pines.

Worth mentioning that we saw four eagles on the drive from L’Espluga de Francoli, all west of Lleida. My guess is that three of them were Golden Eagles, the other probably Booted, however we didn’t get a good enough view of any to positively identify them and they weren’t in places where I could safely stop.

We stopped in Bujarloz for a bit of breakfast at the Espanyol restaurant then tried to find the entrance to the track with the ‘flooded hollow’ on the edge of the village. There was a police checkpoint in operation and we missed it but carried on east then turned right at the first signposted crossroads on the N-11. We drove around the first track and then turned left, back towards Bujaraloz, on the what we assumed, correctly, must be the track to the hollow. There was a small pool close to the junction and this had a single Green Sandpiper, another wader that flew into the scrub as we arrived but was possibly a Redshank, a couple of Yellow Wagtails and several Tawny Pipits. Moving on we soon arrived at the much larger hollow where there was a lot of water and no birds. We did see a perched shrike sp. on the way but couldn’t find it despite 10 minutes of searching after it dived into cover. There were a couple of hundred Lapwings in one field.

Moving on we drove to Laguna de la Playa where Julie stayed in the car for a nap and I went for a stroll. There’s a bird hide close to the shore, below the ruined buildings but I can’t imagine that it’s much use for most of the year. An unexpected Garganey flew by and I could see another duck too far away to identify in one of several scooped out parallel channels visible from the small headland near the car park. I thought that I could see a few more birds (Lesser Black-back?) on the shore of one of the larger areas of water so I set off across the dry lake bed to see if I could get closer. I couldn’t because after a couple of hundred metres the mud became too deep and slippery to risk.

Walking back I saw two Stone Curlews flying away. These had probably been flushed by Julie who had woken up and gone down to the lake edge to look for me. There was also a distant flock of 97 waders. Through binoculars these appeared to be Ringed Plovers with a handful of Dunlins but I would have needed a telescope for positive ID and we were hand-luggage only.

We drove back ‘across country’ and saw a single Swallow near the mirador overlooking Sastago. Lunch was at the much more blue-collar than it sounds Club Nautico de Escatron where the 3 course menu del dia with drinks was €10. It was marginally too cold to dine outside but with its riverside setting this could be an option for a meal with birds.
A quick stop at a riverside park off the N-211 just north of Mequinenza added a few common species to our non-existent trip list then we decided to see whether we could get to the Els Vilars Iberian culture (pre-Roman) site. We did but it was closed. From what we could see, there was a lot of standing water, presumably from the previous week’s very heavy storms, and the car park was 6 inches deep in mud, a fact that I should have spotted from the single set of tyres tracks traversing it. I kept my foot on the gas and managed to get back to dry land with no mishaps, though the wheel arches were thick with goo.

The sun was pretty much set by the time we returned to the small rectangular pond just of the approach road to the site which is presumably related to sewage treatment in some way. There were lots of silent phylloscopus warblers, probably Chiffchaffs, but it was really too dark for meaningful birding.

We had a bit of time before out flight on Tuesday so we went for an hour or so to the reserve next to the airport alongside the Llobregat river. Drive down Carretera de la Marina from the southern edge of El Prat de Llobregat and park at Parking Cal Tet. You can get close by bus (#21) from central Barcelona if you’re prepared to make a bit of an effort. Lots of birds in the reserve that we didn’t really have time to look at. Loads of Chiffchaffs. There was a probable Bluethroat on the path just below the tower hide inside the entrance, but the bird of the day, which meant that we had less time in the reserve because we spent about 15 minutes confirming the ID was a Western Orphean Warbler that was very active in the Broom-like bushes in the north-east corner, nearest to the road to the reserve, of the car park. It was visible almost all of the time but incredibly hard to get a decent look at. Eventually we had enough to satisfy ourselves that our original hunch had been right.

No further trips to the area planned this year, but hopefully we’ll be back in 2020. The large numbers of passage finches, thrushes etc. that had been evident at the start of the holiday seemed to have stopped by the 29th. We saw no evidence of passage on the 29th and very little on the 30th. Weather was rather good throughout with little wind and warm sunny days, although it was overcast for much of the 28th and foggy on the 29th until about 8 a.m.