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Incorporating Birding Stops into a Western Europe Visit (1 Viewer)

With regards to combining Spain and Morocco, I’m not a very big fan especially not with that ferry (things could have improved but I remember the chaos leaving the ferry on a small footbridge with Moroccans trying to first unload 30-kg bags going back and forth and thus blocking the footbridge for half an hour).

All depends on time you have available for the Spain section, but I would firmly stick with areas in Extremadura / donana, thus combining birding with some historical cities for your partner.
I crossed over on the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier and there weren't any problems at all when we got to Tangier. We were being picked up in a minibus to go elsewhere so didn't spend long in Tangier, but you might just have had an off day (or I had a good day).

I stood outside on the ferry to try and see birds or cetaceans and there wasn't really all that much to see on the crossing, so a dedicated wildlife watching boat trip might be advised instead.
 
I have to say I was actually quite fond of Tangier! Not exactly crawling with birdlife but a few African specialities are very easy to pick up in the city (House Bunting, Common Bulbul, African Blue Tit etc), and when I took the Tarifa-Tangier ferry I had a flock of Atlantic Puffin from the boat, though that was in March so I'm not sure that would still be a possibility in May.

I had a day's guided birding in Donana last year in October and it really is very good down there, but I think my favourite spot in the region was Brazo del Este just Southeast of Seville. It's just a drive-along-the-river-and-get-out-at-any-interesting-pools kinda place, but it was good for purple swamphen, black stork, thousands of greater flamingo & white stork and a bunch of other large wadery things. Also had many lark sps down there (mostly Calandra and Crested), Bluethroat, and a few feral weaver sp.s which I guess were introduced at some point. Pretty good diverse haul down there for minimal time and effort.

If you stop in Seville itself, Alamillo Park is good for Little Bittern and also has reintroduction programmes for Red-Knobbed Coot and Ferruginous Duck, guess its up to you whether you'd count those :)
Who was the guide? Have contact info?
 
The Coto Donana on the west bank of the Guadalquivir is an iconic birding destination and worth a visit but, arguably you’ll do better to explore the area to the east of the river as there’s a greater variation in habitats and hence bird species. The list below is ordered roughly as you head south with a lurch to the east for the last two. I've tried to highlight the best species but there are so many!
  • Parque Oromana, Alcala de Guadaira (25 mins from Seville airport) worth a short stop for Azure-winged Magpie (rare on this side of the river) and Iberian Green Woodpecker (often hard to track down)
  • Humedal El Pantano – a good stop if you haven’t time for Brazo del Este as it’s just off the motorway – Little Bittern & Purple Heron are easy to see & it has Spain’s only Laughing Doves. Like all areas with dense tamarisk scrub, it has Western Olivaceous warblers
  • Brazo del Este – reedbed warblers (inc. the scarce Savi’s but get there early), Marbled Duck (scarce), Purple Swamphen, full range of herons & egrets, introduced Black-headed Weaver & Yellow Bishop
  • Sanlucar de Barameda – Chipiona area – Trebujena is the best site in Spain for Rufous Bushchat plus chance of Pin-tailed Sandgrouse, variety of larks, and good numbers of Flamingos etc; the large new reserve nearby should be excellent by then, Chipiona – Iberia's largest colony of Little Swift, Lagunas de Camino Colorado for White-headed & Marbled Duck plus a chance of Red-knobbed Coot
  • Cadiz Bay area – esp Marismas de Cetina – good site for any waders, Pratincoles, Slender-billed Gull, both short-toed larks
  • Medina Sidonia – Benalup – Spanish Imperial & Bonelli’s Eagles, the chance of Little Bustard, etc Lesser kestrels Alcala de los Gazules
  • Tarifa area – dregs of raptor migration...
  • Barbate – Vejer for Bald Ibis, waders, Flamingos, etc
  • La Janda – not a great time to visit but B-w Kite, Montagu’s Harrier & other raptors present
  • Grazalema (south-east of Seville) – Black Wheatear, Rock Sparrow, Rock Bunting, Alpine Swift etc
  • Osuna (east of Seville) - Great & Little Bustards (latter difficult), Black-bellied Sandgrouse (almost impossible!), Roller, Iberian Grey Shrike, B-w Kite
I can supply maps & details of all the above sites and many more if you PM me with your email address
Messaging.
 
Some snippets:

Mirador de Aves SGHN Ibis Eremita · La Barca, 11150 Vejer de la Frontera, Cádiz, Spain has a reintroduced Bald Ibis colony;
36°00'52.1"N 5°36'01.1"W · 11380 Tarifa, Cádiz, Spain the parking and surroundings holds Common Bulbul;

John will obviously be able to provide the bulk of info. I can only add that the steppe areas in extremadura, monfrague, … are all very much worth a visit if coming from Madrid and going towards Sevilla. Many of the birds mentioned are more straigthforward there. If you happen to cross into Portugal, it has a white rumped swift colony just across the border near mertola and has steppe too and I found azure winged magpie to be very common in coastal alentejo. Besides the above mentioned birds by John, you also have tons of bee eaters, corn buntings, the occasional roller, many hoopoes, red-rumped swallow,…red-collared nightjar is another bird I guess you want to target?
 
So I have more or less an itinerary set, keeping in mind it's working birding into a tourism trip rather than a birding trip.

In the UK I will spend a morning at Slimbridge or somewhere nearby and also keep an eye out for things as I do a road trip from London down through Brighton to Bath through the Cotswolds and back to London. I might have a short 2 or 3 day jaunt up to Oslo but I don't think (or haven't found) anything particularly worth chasing there in mid-May. Am I missing anything there?

Spain is where I will spend most of my birding time and where there's still some fuzziness in the schedule. The plan is to fly into Seville sometime around May 17-20 and rent a car for 4-6 days. I have John's book and am trying to work my way through it (it's very detailed!). I am planning to go down to Gibraltar for one day and then spend probably two days around the Coto Doñana park. And spend a bit of time seeing Seville before getting the train north to Madrid for our flight back to Costa Rica.

I've tried tracking down a pelagic operator to go for Balearic Shearwater although I think there's a chance for that from shore? Any suggestions for Shearwater sightings? (Cory's and Scopoli's are both new for me as well although Cory's is a rare visitor to Costa Rica.) I see a place that would require a bit of a detour called Punta y Observatorio de Calaburras between Gibraltar and Málaga that seems to have solid numbers of them.
 
I have John's book and am trying to work my way through it (it's very detailed!).

I've tried tracking down a pelagic operator to go for Balearic Shearwater although I think there's a chance for that from shore? Any suggestions for Shearwater sightings? (Cory's and Scopoli's are both new for me as well although Cory's is a rare visitor to Costa Rica.) I see a place that would require a bit of a detour called Punta y Observatorio de Calaburras between Gibraltar and Málaga that seems to have solid numbers of them.
Apologies for the rather OTT nature of my guide ...

There's a chance of both Balearic & "Cory's" Shearwater from pretty much the whole coastline of Cadiz province (esp. very early in the day). However, getting a sufficiently good view (or preferably photo) to distinguish Cory's & Scopoli's from the land is very tricky! I'd advise a pelagic birding trip (see my guide for details of tour companies) or, failing a specialist jaunt, a whale-watching jaunt.
 
So I have more or less an itinerary set, keeping in mind it's working birding into a tourism trip rather than a birding trip.

In the UK I will spend a morning at Slimbridge or somewhere nearby and also keep an eye out for things as I do a road trip from London down through Brighton to Bath through the Cotswolds and back to London. I might have a short 2 or 3 day jaunt up to Oslo but I don't think (or haven't found) anything particularly worth chasing there in mid-May. Am I missing anything there?

Spain is where I will spend most of my birding time and where there's still some fuzziness in the schedule. The plan is to fly into Seville sometime around May 17-20 and rent a car for 4-6 days. I have John's book and am trying to work my way through it (it's very detailed!). I am planning to go down to Gibraltar for one day and then spend probably two days around the Coto Doñana park. And spend a bit of time seeing Seville before getting the train north to Madrid for our flight back to Costa Rica.

I've tried tracking down a pelagic operator to go for Balearic Shearwater although I think there's a chance for that from shore? Any suggestions for Shearwater sightings? (Cory's and Scopoli's are both new for me as well although Cory's is a rare visitor to Costa Rica.) I see a place that would require a bit of a detour called Punta y Observatorio de Calaburras between Gibraltar and Málaga that seems to have solid numbers of them.

If you're going near Brighton, there are some minor seabird colonies you could go for; particularly the colony at Splash Point in Seaford, which is the only black-legged kittiwake colony in the south of England and also good for Northern Fulmar.
 

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