Phenology of birds in Spain (1 Viewer)

Having been to Spain now at different times of the year I still would find it helpful to have a phenology of birds in Spain at hand. Especially late in summer it is hard to judge whether it is worth the effort to look for a specific species which might already have returned to its wintering grounds.

Is some information on the phenology available (preferrably accessible in electronic form)?

Cheers,
Matthias

I use eBird to get an idea what may be seen in an area and when it is most likely.

There is some data for spain but it is limited.

Check it out here.

There may be better websites for Spain, eBird started as United States based and has just recently expanded globally.

Mike

I don't know about Spain, but I am in the Balkans and in late summer almost all birds are still there (plus passing migrants) but are shy and drab; we had many posts on our local mailing lists about unusual songbirds (various warblers, mostly) being recorded in late October while mist-netting/banding/ringing, and the more experienced ringers state that they find some every year - people just assume everything is gone by end of September. Our records from EBW in first week of October show an interesting medley of winter and summer species; we have a few overwintering white storks counted during the January waterbird census.

For an electronic source, I would second Mike's recommendation and link to eBird. Since Spain is a popular birding destination, the eBird data set for it is already fairly robust – more so than most other European countries. (And a new local expert is now on the watch – he posted about that recently on this forum).

I would add that to get more information about particular sightings (and get an idea of how many sightings there are for a particular species, i.e. how robust the data is), click on the "map" link next to the species name in the bar chart Mike linked to. You can then click on the individual balloons to get more info about a sighting.

Hope this helps,
Jim

The excellent "Field Guide to the Birds of the Strait of Gibraltar / Guia de Aves del Estrecho de Gibraltar" has very useful tables showing the phenology of the birds passing through the area (The excellent Liberia Agricola in jerez is currently selling it at a discounted price of 16 euros - see www.agricolajerez.com - but you'd probably have to add as much for postage. Images of the book can be seen by Googling it. This will give you a good idea for many species even though it covers a limited area. The Guia de Aves de Espana (Lynx) will give you an idea - albeit a fairly broad one - of the situation in Spain (it's in Spanish but easy to understand. My bird notes on Cadiz province - largely based on the above books plus my own experience - has an appendix with simple charts showing the bird phenology in the area. You can download my notes (for free) via my blog for which see below.

John Cantelo said:

... My bird notes on Cadiz province - largely based on the above books plus my own experience - has an appendix with simple charts showing the bird phenology in the area. You can download my notes (for free) via my blog for which see below.

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Many thanks! This was what I was looking for!

MSC said:

Many thanks! This was what I was looking for!

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Glad to have helped!