Isurus
Well-known member
The Iberian Lynx is the rarest cat species in the world with only 300ish individuals out there. Notwithstanding this and its secretive nature, birdforumers have had decent success searching in the Sierra Andujar for them. I joined a trip in January to chance my hand. I should say first up that this is not the format I originally wrote the report in. It can be found in its full glory, with a shedload of photos embedded here: http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=15638
I have no idea why birdforum won't allow embedding but there you go. If you want to read the text and look at piccies separately read on, then go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/sets/72157632614753571/show/
for the slideshow.
Day 1 – 19/01/13
My trip started on 19 January, flying off island in snow that had me seriously concerned about our chances of flying, making it to Gatwick and then easyjetting it to Malaga. After a relaxing trip and a bowl of crocquettas I was met by our guide Julian Sykes who I will say at the start was awesome all trip. We drove to our hotel and as we were driving, discussed targets, chances and so on. I mentioned White-headed duck, a rare spanish specialty, and Julian surprised me by suggesting we target it that night - Rio Guadalhorce Nature reserve is a 5 minute drive from the airport so, having dropped the bags off and grabbed bins and camera we headed out and minutes later:
tick: a nice female white headed duck!
We also saw monk parakeet, black necked grebe, a single murky greater flamingo and a few other bits before heading over to the coast. Julian is doing a big year with the goal of raising money for lynx conservation (details here: http://juliansykeswildlife.blogspot.co.uk/ ) and wanted to do a few minutes seawatching. He soon picked up a nice bonxie skua to add a new tick and we also saw a decent flock of scoter as well as huge numbers of gulls.
Day 2 – 20/01/13
An early start saw us caffeinated and on the road by 7 heading west. Leaving Malaga we were into some interesting roadkill reasonably quickly; first passing what appeared to be an Egyptian ex-mongoose. Shortly thereafter just before the outskirts of a small village we passed a DOR cat – tabby in colouration and with a fat ringed tail that would’ve made me sit up and take notice in the highlands. We were past it in a second and we’ll never know if it was feral, genuine or a bit of both but it certainly would’ve looked good had we seen it amongst the roadside crags alive.
After briefly pondering whether to cross into gib for a cross-border Barbary Ape twitch we came to our senses and continued on soon entering a world of wind turbines and circling storks and Eurasian griffon vultures. Before long every pylon hosted a pair of white storks and a monstrous raft of sticks and every hill was topped with circling griffons.
After re-fueling on more coffee, we eventually hit Rota around 10ish. Happily we got lost as shortly after finding El Jardin Botanico Celestino(?) we realised it was shut, only to hear creaking doors opening moments later. Being asked to return in a half an hour and promised our quarry in return we wandered the beachside scrub, seeing plenty of Serins and also pine processionary moth.
Returning to the gardens we wandered haplessly looking for our goal, turning up collateral firecrests, chiffchaffs and Sardinian warblers as we went.
Eventually our hostess at the gardens, the lovely Andrea, got involved in the quest too, muttering to herself and wandering around pointing out likely spots before after perhaps 20 minutes of searching she beckoned me over and pointed out a Mediterranean chameleon.
After enjoying it for some time and getting the best photos we could of it in the circumstances (it was atop a tree), we searched for more taking a break of about 5 minutes to show a bewildered local family what we were looking at.
Apparently there are around twenty territory holding animals in the garden in summer.
On a bleak winters day we, and by “we“ I mean Andrea, turned up 4, all equally delightful, all surprisingly high in the trees.
We also saw the biggest common toad of all time and a pair of Spanish Terrapins (a board in the gardens suggests its pond hosts both Spanish terrapin and European Pond Turtle).
After further conversations with Andrea (hindered by my total lack of Spanish) on zen and the art of chameleon spotting, we headed off into the mountains in search of our secondary target for the day, ibex. A whistlestop for lunch and then our rather nice drive through some beautiful olive groves and citrus orchards was interrupted by yet more roadkill, this time Iberian hare and Algerian hedgehog in quick succession (assuming my other ids were all correct; that’s 3 and a half (I have African but not European wildcat) potential lifers smeared across the tarmac in a single day), heartbreaking and I say that not just from a selfish perspective.
Driving on we were buzzed by a flock of common cranes flying in to join perhaps 200 others feeding in a roadside field and after passing through a beautiful little town with streets lined with orange trees we reached Torcal de Antequera.
Julian frequently finds Spanish ibex around the car park here but before we had even pulled in I called out yes after seeing the rump of a cloven footed animal. Yes turned to no as I realised I’d picked out two lost, high altitude red deer instead of our quarry. With the area besieged by fog, wind, rain, 3 degree temperatures, tourists and dogwalkers it was simply not to be. No ibex today although a flyover golden eagle was a nice bonus as was the beautiful blossom of the wild and cultivated almond trees that lined the roadsides and the beautiful flowers of Iris planifolia.
Perhaps most remarkable sight of all was the presence of huge primitive local cattle wandering unconcernedly through the harsh mountain environment. Seeing what is basically an aurochs mosey with ease through an area you yourself have struggled to climb through gives one a real appreciation for what this landscape must’ve been like thousands of years ago.
After finally giving up on the ibex we headed back to Malaga. Unwilling to call it a day with light left I opted for a second bash at Guadahorce in hopes of a drake white headed duck whilst Julian decided to seawatch some more in the hopes of another tick for his big year.
I was somewhat surprised when the first bird I saw was a perched short-eared owl. After stalking in for wonderful views and my best photos to date of the species I walked on seeing another female WHD, two juvenile Greater flamingos and more of the same cast as yesterday with a pair of hoopoes a welcome surprise.
Trudging back to meet Julian, I saw the owl again, then another. Before I knew it I was standing between at least 4 hunting short-eared owls. Meeting Julian at the car, I thought it best to enquire if he needed SEO for his year list; his sprint to the reserve confirmed he did and with the light fading we got last looks at a hunting owl as well as adding a pipistrelle bat hunting over the river. A nice end to a successful day.
Day 3 – 21/01/13
After a lie-in, caffeination and simple breakfast we headed out around 11 to collect another member of the party, Elizabeth from the airport. With the final two members delayed we headed back to Guadehorsa for another quick session and were again rewarded with birds of prey, this time, marsh harrier, osprey and booted eagle. Other birds of interest were zitting cisticola, feral monk parakeet, an early house martin amongst the crag martins and a lone female white headed duck. Sadly the short-eared owls were not showing in the heavy winds. A brief seawatch produced arctic and great skuas and common scoter.
After picking up the rest of the crew, we set off for Sierra Andujar. A brief pause on our onward journey through the olive grove monoculture at a lagoon saw us rewarded with first huge flocks of common crane in a roadside field and, later, greater flamingo and shoveller in the laguna.
Skylark and crested lark fluttered overhead and meadow pipit and white wagtails were abundant in the fields. A couple of black-winged stilts and lapwings loafed in the flooded grassland as well. Rabbit became the day’s first mammal but of my hoped-for Iberian hare there was again no sign. A second stop along the way at a roadside café next to a flooded field produced a surprising number of birds notably golden plover and red-legged partridge.
We arrived at our lodgings (Los Pinos) and immediately dumped our bags before heading out for a quick optimistic drive to the Jandula river watchpoint. This produced no birds of interest but added red deer and soprano pippistrelle to the day’s list of mammals. As we enjoyed our first excellent meal of many at Los Pinos (the food really is cracking, can’t recommend it highly enough) we were filled with optimism for the days ahead.
Day 4
Our first day of lynx watching proper. I had a feeling there would be plenty of stuff to be seen on the way in for some reason and was delighted to be proven correct only fifteen minutes into the drive in. A brown shape moved across the pasture to our left and I immediately blurted out "Lynx! Left hand side!"
Julian quickly pulled over and we were treated to a couple of minutes show as a small female lynx (with radio collar) walked down the fence line on the left hand side of the road, nonchalantly hopped up onto a gate post and through the fence and crossed the road. With light still appalling I videoed her ambling across the field and eventually disappearing into some rocky cover.
alas the videos won't embed but you can see them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/ ... 2614753571
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/ ... 2614753571
The car was stunned as we came to realise we'd scored our main target inside the first twenty minutes and got stunning views at that. My hands were shaking from the rush. I'd been bracing myself for hours of scoping the hillsides so to find one like this myself so easily was mindblowing. A couple of minutes down the road Julian pulled over again and we knocked off a second major target as a pair of spanish imperial eagles drifted over our heads.
There were only 279 of this globally threatened species in Spain in 2010 so, again, this is a real rarity as well as being an Andujar speciality. After finally arriving at the La Lancha viewpoint we ambled about still in a state of mild surprise as the rains started to come down but saw very little further. After toughing it out for a while we gave up and headed back to the hotel to warm up with a cortado and pastry.
Things cleared up later in the day and we headed back out seeing another 3 spanish imperial eagles and a couple of golden eagles as the day heated up plenty of Griffon Vultures and the odd Black Vulture popped over as well. Lunch was shared with Azure-winged magpies:
Mammalwise plenty of red deer cruised about through the scrub in the valleys below us but of lynx there was no sign.
As we gave up for the day and drove home Lauren spied an absolutely huge sow wild boar in a creek near the road. We pulled over in near darkness and got point blank views as she crossed the little creek walked up the hill towards the road and snuffled about. I have to say that at one point as she ambled straight at us the deer fencing between us didn’t look all that secure. A little owl flying down the road was the day’s final sighting.
Having made mention of the deer, it's worth noting that the area is a hunted one and that Los Pinos' restaurant walls are decorated by some of the most enormous red stag skulls I've ever seen - the deer here are serious beasties.
Day 5
Our second day of lynx-searching started far more slowly, the weather was again poor - dry this time but heavily overcast and with biting wind. A lovely herd of fallow deer on the drive in was a nice start though.
Things briefly heated up when a spanish couple arrived at our watch point and almost immediately the lady of the pair claimed to have picked up two lynx. Her boyfriend was unable to get on them with the benefit of her directions in spanish and hence we stood no chance with our guestimated translation.
Almost immediately thereafter I got a call from Julian who had picked up 3 mouflon from his vantage point around the bend. 3 fine rams sat relaxing on the hillside on the other side of the valley at a distance of at least a km. As we took those in a trio of wild boar flushed somewhere around the area in which the two lynx were supposed to have been. Watching them flush along with a load of red deer does convinced me something was definitely wandering around over there.
My feeble attempts at digiscoping the mouflon did little to cheer my mood as the cold started to really take hold. After a long stint of watching we were all feeling similarly miserable notwithstanding the constant chuckling of the red-legged partridges all around and occasional flypasts by both vultures. A break was in order and so we drove around to the Jandula dam and walked the tunnels there looking for bats. We found a couple of greater mouse-eared bats including one that turned out to be a nursing mother.
Shortly after I’d said nothing as a flock of (what I presumed were) feral pigeons fluttered over Julian mentioned that the area was good for pure rock dove. Oops. My bad. After enjoying lunch we drove a little further and as we were headed back to the watchpoint a couple of the group mentioned that they'd quite like a break for the afternoon. Julian drove on to drop them back at the hotel and dropped myself and Elizabeth at the Los Escoriados area. This is a ranching area famed for producing fighting bulls which, notwithstanding their unfortunate fate, are awesome beasties and one of the most impressive chunks of beef I've ever seen. We walked on happily photographing these monsters and various birds that dropped in too.
the bulls are fed and watered in these amazing old granite bowls. I have no clue how one would make something this epic. All the fence posts are made of granite too somehow - a nice backdrop for black redstart and blue rock thrush.
One of the truly awesome things about the fighting bulls was how wild and at home they looked in the landscape. It might be because I've spent a lot of time recently visiting the Rewilding Europe ( http://www.rewildingeurope.com/ ) and European Wildife ( http://www.eurowildlife.org/?s=tauros ) websites thinking about wild cattle breeds/breeding and aurochs subsititutes but it really drove home for me the idea that cows used to be wild which is an obvious thought but more obvious once you see it in action.
Shortly after that Julian picked us up and we got another highlight. Julian had mentioned that in with the bulls is a good spot to look for mouflon and he called his shot. I was expecting maybe one or two sheep but instead we got a huge flock of them running en masse through the terrain. Absolutely spectacular.
We then spent time back at the watchpoint but other than a few red deer nothing much was doing on the deck. Overhead we got plenty of griffon vultures, cinerous vultures and a bit of scrappy action between the Spanish Imperial eagles and a brace of wandering juvenile golden eagles....
Driving home we saw another big boar and then stopped for one of my favourite raptors, a little owl on a telephone wire. Stopping to have a look and take a shot at that was well worth while but not for quality of images.
Whilst still parked up something crept across the road in the near pitch black in front of us. I picked it up in my peripheral vision and said something along the lines of "what's this on the road in front of us? S**T! LYNX!!!!!!!" Julian and I got half decent looks at it and then as we drove to where it'd disappeared I got a quick look at it again behind us in amongst the granite lumps before it disappeared.
For the second time we'd seen a lynx whilst driving in appalling light conditions and in an area not known for sightings. Wonderful. This animal was much bigger than the first and collarless. Now I just needed a chunky collarless one in daylight!
Another little owl on the drive back was a perfect end.
Day 6
Our last full day of lynx-watching featured slightly better weather. We’d planned for a three stage day’ morning at La Lancha, then back to Los Pinos to allow us all a warming coffee, with those who wanted it staying in the warm for lunch, and those who didn’t heading out to the dam, followed by an evening session at the dam and hopefully a date with a gennet. Again we scored a carnivore on the road in. This time it was a red fox bolting across the road (I must confess that after two lynx on the road already my call on spotting it up front was the slightly embarrassing “Lynx! No, it’s got a tail: Wildcat!! No! Fox?” Oops). On the upside a Dutch guy had told us just the previous day that red fox was harder to see in the park that Lynx so I guess this was a surprisingly good start.
Since it was at last sunny I intermixed my scanning with a few landscape and habitat shots and a few shots of the typical vegetation, wild rosemary and jonquil daffodils.
We found ourselves nicely spread out before too long at La Lancha and I was getting a bit more of a positive feeling save for the fact it was very quiet. After a couple of hours I wandered over towards Elizabeth and Julian who were wandering towards me. They quickly explained that Julian had briefly seen a lynx which had crested one of the little ridges and was last seen walking up one of the two gullies that passed either side of my watchpoint. We headed back to where I had been but completely failed to pick up the lynx again for what seemed like an age. Then I caught something lynx shaped in my peripheral and found our lynx behind us on the other side of the road at a distance of less than 50 metres! Alerting the others we got brief views before it again passed up the hill.
Predictably as we walked around the rock to try and regain contact with it, it crested the same rock and gave Julian a cracking view whilst Elizabeth and I saw nothing more. Once it was into the denser vegetation of the upper hillside we knew the jig was up and soon enough headed back to Los Pinos pausing only to take some shots of some of the more wonderful oaks in the sun, an iberian green woodpecker and the most cooperative partridge of the trip.
On the Cork oaks (Quercus suber) - you can see where the cork has been harvested - it's amazing how much the locals get out of what is essentially completely wild landscape.
A warming coffee and delicious pastry later we were heading back to the river, pausing only to see Blackcaps, Crested Tits and greater spotted woodpecker in the Los Pinos Car Park.
We had a nice time wandering around the car park area eating our sandwiches and finding various smaller bits and bobs. A mixed flock of firecrests and goldcrests was a particular highlight as well as the first butterflies of the trip.
an otter spraint and small mustelid sign indicated the lynx wasn't the only predator about and we heard distant calls of green tree frog. At this point Julian came running towards us pointing at a displaying goshawk. To the naked eye I could see a dot rising and falling and so assuming I had plenty of time I dealt with my sandwich first and then raised my bins, failing completely to get on the bird as it dropped behind the tree line and never came back up. I felt bad for Julian as he must have had great views which he sacrificed to get us on the bird which we then completely messed up.
Before we left, I took a photo of the now iconic lynx crossing sign.
In the evening we started at the bottom car park by the river and had a gentle amble up the hill to the river watchpoint. The firecrests were still flitting about and a pair of tree creepers were also working the same trees. At this point Julian found a rather wonderful hawfinch sat at the very top of a tree.
As I stalked as close to it as I could with my camera, a familiar call rang out, and it was joined in its tree by a gorgeous Iberian green woodpecker.
A hoopoe fluttered into the next tree and we walked on up the hill. Iberian Marsh Frog calls resonated up to us as we reached and sat at the river watchpoint and a chiffchaff was busy flycatching just below us. Crag Martins skimmed the river with a lone early House Martin as a few red deer grazed. Alas there was to be no farewell lynx.
Walking back to the car to commence the genet stakeout a few bats were flitting about, Julian’s bat detector confirmed the presence of both Soprano and Common Pipistrelles. There then followed a couple of hours of tensely watching our carefully selected tree. Alas our sardines attracted nothing, no genet nor the stone martin, otter, mongoose or various other plausible I thought a couple of hours of sitting in the dark might reveal (we found spraints and some sort of small mustelid scat in the area that afternoon). The drive back produced at least one new mammal - a mouse. Unfortunately the long-tail told Julian it was a yellow-necked wood mouse as opposed to the possible lifer for me, Algerian mouse. Worse still shortly after that I got the briefest of views of what I think was probably Iberian hare. Our final night at Los Pinos ended not in failure but with yet another magnificient feast.
Day 7
The final day was essentially all drive to the airport. Having dropped off Elizabeth for her flight, we went for a quick circuit of Rio Guadalhorce again. After two visits and nothing but females, I was delighted to connect with a load of drake white-headed ducks displaying their naming characteristic, blacknecked grebe, nice chiffchaffs and a booted eagle was a suitably awesome last sighting of the trip.
I have no idea why birdforum won't allow embedding but there you go. If you want to read the text and look at piccies separately read on, then go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/sets/72157632614753571/show/
for the slideshow.
Day 1 – 19/01/13
My trip started on 19 January, flying off island in snow that had me seriously concerned about our chances of flying, making it to Gatwick and then easyjetting it to Malaga. After a relaxing trip and a bowl of crocquettas I was met by our guide Julian Sykes who I will say at the start was awesome all trip. We drove to our hotel and as we were driving, discussed targets, chances and so on. I mentioned White-headed duck, a rare spanish specialty, and Julian surprised me by suggesting we target it that night - Rio Guadalhorce Nature reserve is a 5 minute drive from the airport so, having dropped the bags off and grabbed bins and camera we headed out and minutes later:
tick: a nice female white headed duck!
We also saw monk parakeet, black necked grebe, a single murky greater flamingo and a few other bits before heading over to the coast. Julian is doing a big year with the goal of raising money for lynx conservation (details here: http://juliansykeswildlife.blogspot.co.uk/ ) and wanted to do a few minutes seawatching. He soon picked up a nice bonxie skua to add a new tick and we also saw a decent flock of scoter as well as huge numbers of gulls.
Day 2 – 20/01/13
An early start saw us caffeinated and on the road by 7 heading west. Leaving Malaga we were into some interesting roadkill reasonably quickly; first passing what appeared to be an Egyptian ex-mongoose. Shortly thereafter just before the outskirts of a small village we passed a DOR cat – tabby in colouration and with a fat ringed tail that would’ve made me sit up and take notice in the highlands. We were past it in a second and we’ll never know if it was feral, genuine or a bit of both but it certainly would’ve looked good had we seen it amongst the roadside crags alive.
After briefly pondering whether to cross into gib for a cross-border Barbary Ape twitch we came to our senses and continued on soon entering a world of wind turbines and circling storks and Eurasian griffon vultures. Before long every pylon hosted a pair of white storks and a monstrous raft of sticks and every hill was topped with circling griffons.
After re-fueling on more coffee, we eventually hit Rota around 10ish. Happily we got lost as shortly after finding El Jardin Botanico Celestino(?) we realised it was shut, only to hear creaking doors opening moments later. Being asked to return in a half an hour and promised our quarry in return we wandered the beachside scrub, seeing plenty of Serins and also pine processionary moth.
Returning to the gardens we wandered haplessly looking for our goal, turning up collateral firecrests, chiffchaffs and Sardinian warblers as we went.
Eventually our hostess at the gardens, the lovely Andrea, got involved in the quest too, muttering to herself and wandering around pointing out likely spots before after perhaps 20 minutes of searching she beckoned me over and pointed out a Mediterranean chameleon.
After enjoying it for some time and getting the best photos we could of it in the circumstances (it was atop a tree), we searched for more taking a break of about 5 minutes to show a bewildered local family what we were looking at.
Apparently there are around twenty territory holding animals in the garden in summer.
On a bleak winters day we, and by “we“ I mean Andrea, turned up 4, all equally delightful, all surprisingly high in the trees.
We also saw the biggest common toad of all time and a pair of Spanish Terrapins (a board in the gardens suggests its pond hosts both Spanish terrapin and European Pond Turtle).
After further conversations with Andrea (hindered by my total lack of Spanish) on zen and the art of chameleon spotting, we headed off into the mountains in search of our secondary target for the day, ibex. A whistlestop for lunch and then our rather nice drive through some beautiful olive groves and citrus orchards was interrupted by yet more roadkill, this time Iberian hare and Algerian hedgehog in quick succession (assuming my other ids were all correct; that’s 3 and a half (I have African but not European wildcat) potential lifers smeared across the tarmac in a single day), heartbreaking and I say that not just from a selfish perspective.
Driving on we were buzzed by a flock of common cranes flying in to join perhaps 200 others feeding in a roadside field and after passing through a beautiful little town with streets lined with orange trees we reached Torcal de Antequera.
Julian frequently finds Spanish ibex around the car park here but before we had even pulled in I called out yes after seeing the rump of a cloven footed animal. Yes turned to no as I realised I’d picked out two lost, high altitude red deer instead of our quarry. With the area besieged by fog, wind, rain, 3 degree temperatures, tourists and dogwalkers it was simply not to be. No ibex today although a flyover golden eagle was a nice bonus as was the beautiful blossom of the wild and cultivated almond trees that lined the roadsides and the beautiful flowers of Iris planifolia.
Perhaps most remarkable sight of all was the presence of huge primitive local cattle wandering unconcernedly through the harsh mountain environment. Seeing what is basically an aurochs mosey with ease through an area you yourself have struggled to climb through gives one a real appreciation for what this landscape must’ve been like thousands of years ago.
After finally giving up on the ibex we headed back to Malaga. Unwilling to call it a day with light left I opted for a second bash at Guadahorce in hopes of a drake white headed duck whilst Julian decided to seawatch some more in the hopes of another tick for his big year.
I was somewhat surprised when the first bird I saw was a perched short-eared owl. After stalking in for wonderful views and my best photos to date of the species I walked on seeing another female WHD, two juvenile Greater flamingos and more of the same cast as yesterday with a pair of hoopoes a welcome surprise.
Trudging back to meet Julian, I saw the owl again, then another. Before I knew it I was standing between at least 4 hunting short-eared owls. Meeting Julian at the car, I thought it best to enquire if he needed SEO for his year list; his sprint to the reserve confirmed he did and with the light fading we got last looks at a hunting owl as well as adding a pipistrelle bat hunting over the river. A nice end to a successful day.
Day 3 – 21/01/13
After a lie-in, caffeination and simple breakfast we headed out around 11 to collect another member of the party, Elizabeth from the airport. With the final two members delayed we headed back to Guadehorsa for another quick session and were again rewarded with birds of prey, this time, marsh harrier, osprey and booted eagle. Other birds of interest were zitting cisticola, feral monk parakeet, an early house martin amongst the crag martins and a lone female white headed duck. Sadly the short-eared owls were not showing in the heavy winds. A brief seawatch produced arctic and great skuas and common scoter.
After picking up the rest of the crew, we set off for Sierra Andujar. A brief pause on our onward journey through the olive grove monoculture at a lagoon saw us rewarded with first huge flocks of common crane in a roadside field and, later, greater flamingo and shoveller in the laguna.
Skylark and crested lark fluttered overhead and meadow pipit and white wagtails were abundant in the fields. A couple of black-winged stilts and lapwings loafed in the flooded grassland as well. Rabbit became the day’s first mammal but of my hoped-for Iberian hare there was again no sign. A second stop along the way at a roadside café next to a flooded field produced a surprising number of birds notably golden plover and red-legged partridge.
We arrived at our lodgings (Los Pinos) and immediately dumped our bags before heading out for a quick optimistic drive to the Jandula river watchpoint. This produced no birds of interest but added red deer and soprano pippistrelle to the day’s list of mammals. As we enjoyed our first excellent meal of many at Los Pinos (the food really is cracking, can’t recommend it highly enough) we were filled with optimism for the days ahead.
Day 4
Our first day of lynx watching proper. I had a feeling there would be plenty of stuff to be seen on the way in for some reason and was delighted to be proven correct only fifteen minutes into the drive in. A brown shape moved across the pasture to our left and I immediately blurted out "Lynx! Left hand side!"
Julian quickly pulled over and we were treated to a couple of minutes show as a small female lynx (with radio collar) walked down the fence line on the left hand side of the road, nonchalantly hopped up onto a gate post and through the fence and crossed the road. With light still appalling I videoed her ambling across the field and eventually disappearing into some rocky cover.
alas the videos won't embed but you can see them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/ ... 2614753571
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deep-blue/ ... 2614753571
The car was stunned as we came to realise we'd scored our main target inside the first twenty minutes and got stunning views at that. My hands were shaking from the rush. I'd been bracing myself for hours of scoping the hillsides so to find one like this myself so easily was mindblowing. A couple of minutes down the road Julian pulled over again and we knocked off a second major target as a pair of spanish imperial eagles drifted over our heads.
There were only 279 of this globally threatened species in Spain in 2010 so, again, this is a real rarity as well as being an Andujar speciality. After finally arriving at the La Lancha viewpoint we ambled about still in a state of mild surprise as the rains started to come down but saw very little further. After toughing it out for a while we gave up and headed back to the hotel to warm up with a cortado and pastry.
Things cleared up later in the day and we headed back out seeing another 3 spanish imperial eagles and a couple of golden eagles as the day heated up plenty of Griffon Vultures and the odd Black Vulture popped over as well. Lunch was shared with Azure-winged magpies:
Mammalwise plenty of red deer cruised about through the scrub in the valleys below us but of lynx there was no sign.
As we gave up for the day and drove home Lauren spied an absolutely huge sow wild boar in a creek near the road. We pulled over in near darkness and got point blank views as she crossed the little creek walked up the hill towards the road and snuffled about. I have to say that at one point as she ambled straight at us the deer fencing between us didn’t look all that secure. A little owl flying down the road was the day’s final sighting.
Having made mention of the deer, it's worth noting that the area is a hunted one and that Los Pinos' restaurant walls are decorated by some of the most enormous red stag skulls I've ever seen - the deer here are serious beasties.
Day 5
Our second day of lynx-searching started far more slowly, the weather was again poor - dry this time but heavily overcast and with biting wind. A lovely herd of fallow deer on the drive in was a nice start though.
Things briefly heated up when a spanish couple arrived at our watch point and almost immediately the lady of the pair claimed to have picked up two lynx. Her boyfriend was unable to get on them with the benefit of her directions in spanish and hence we stood no chance with our guestimated translation.
Almost immediately thereafter I got a call from Julian who had picked up 3 mouflon from his vantage point around the bend. 3 fine rams sat relaxing on the hillside on the other side of the valley at a distance of at least a km. As we took those in a trio of wild boar flushed somewhere around the area in which the two lynx were supposed to have been. Watching them flush along with a load of red deer does convinced me something was definitely wandering around over there.
My feeble attempts at digiscoping the mouflon did little to cheer my mood as the cold started to really take hold. After a long stint of watching we were all feeling similarly miserable notwithstanding the constant chuckling of the red-legged partridges all around and occasional flypasts by both vultures. A break was in order and so we drove around to the Jandula dam and walked the tunnels there looking for bats. We found a couple of greater mouse-eared bats including one that turned out to be a nursing mother.
Shortly after I’d said nothing as a flock of (what I presumed were) feral pigeons fluttered over Julian mentioned that the area was good for pure rock dove. Oops. My bad. After enjoying lunch we drove a little further and as we were headed back to the watchpoint a couple of the group mentioned that they'd quite like a break for the afternoon. Julian drove on to drop them back at the hotel and dropped myself and Elizabeth at the Los Escoriados area. This is a ranching area famed for producing fighting bulls which, notwithstanding their unfortunate fate, are awesome beasties and one of the most impressive chunks of beef I've ever seen. We walked on happily photographing these monsters and various birds that dropped in too.
the bulls are fed and watered in these amazing old granite bowls. I have no clue how one would make something this epic. All the fence posts are made of granite too somehow - a nice backdrop for black redstart and blue rock thrush.
One of the truly awesome things about the fighting bulls was how wild and at home they looked in the landscape. It might be because I've spent a lot of time recently visiting the Rewilding Europe ( http://www.rewildingeurope.com/ ) and European Wildife ( http://www.eurowildlife.org/?s=tauros ) websites thinking about wild cattle breeds/breeding and aurochs subsititutes but it really drove home for me the idea that cows used to be wild which is an obvious thought but more obvious once you see it in action.
Shortly after that Julian picked us up and we got another highlight. Julian had mentioned that in with the bulls is a good spot to look for mouflon and he called his shot. I was expecting maybe one or two sheep but instead we got a huge flock of them running en masse through the terrain. Absolutely spectacular.
We then spent time back at the watchpoint but other than a few red deer nothing much was doing on the deck. Overhead we got plenty of griffon vultures, cinerous vultures and a bit of scrappy action between the Spanish Imperial eagles and a brace of wandering juvenile golden eagles....
Driving home we saw another big boar and then stopped for one of my favourite raptors, a little owl on a telephone wire. Stopping to have a look and take a shot at that was well worth while but not for quality of images.
Whilst still parked up something crept across the road in the near pitch black in front of us. I picked it up in my peripheral vision and said something along the lines of "what's this on the road in front of us? S**T! LYNX!!!!!!!" Julian and I got half decent looks at it and then as we drove to where it'd disappeared I got a quick look at it again behind us in amongst the granite lumps before it disappeared.
For the second time we'd seen a lynx whilst driving in appalling light conditions and in an area not known for sightings. Wonderful. This animal was much bigger than the first and collarless. Now I just needed a chunky collarless one in daylight!
Another little owl on the drive back was a perfect end.
Day 6
Our last full day of lynx-watching featured slightly better weather. We’d planned for a three stage day’ morning at La Lancha, then back to Los Pinos to allow us all a warming coffee, with those who wanted it staying in the warm for lunch, and those who didn’t heading out to the dam, followed by an evening session at the dam and hopefully a date with a gennet. Again we scored a carnivore on the road in. This time it was a red fox bolting across the road (I must confess that after two lynx on the road already my call on spotting it up front was the slightly embarrassing “Lynx! No, it’s got a tail: Wildcat!! No! Fox?” Oops). On the upside a Dutch guy had told us just the previous day that red fox was harder to see in the park that Lynx so I guess this was a surprisingly good start.
Since it was at last sunny I intermixed my scanning with a few landscape and habitat shots and a few shots of the typical vegetation, wild rosemary and jonquil daffodils.
We found ourselves nicely spread out before too long at La Lancha and I was getting a bit more of a positive feeling save for the fact it was very quiet. After a couple of hours I wandered over towards Elizabeth and Julian who were wandering towards me. They quickly explained that Julian had briefly seen a lynx which had crested one of the little ridges and was last seen walking up one of the two gullies that passed either side of my watchpoint. We headed back to where I had been but completely failed to pick up the lynx again for what seemed like an age. Then I caught something lynx shaped in my peripheral and found our lynx behind us on the other side of the road at a distance of less than 50 metres! Alerting the others we got brief views before it again passed up the hill.
Predictably as we walked around the rock to try and regain contact with it, it crested the same rock and gave Julian a cracking view whilst Elizabeth and I saw nothing more. Once it was into the denser vegetation of the upper hillside we knew the jig was up and soon enough headed back to Los Pinos pausing only to take some shots of some of the more wonderful oaks in the sun, an iberian green woodpecker and the most cooperative partridge of the trip.
On the Cork oaks (Quercus suber) - you can see where the cork has been harvested - it's amazing how much the locals get out of what is essentially completely wild landscape.
A warming coffee and delicious pastry later we were heading back to the river, pausing only to see Blackcaps, Crested Tits and greater spotted woodpecker in the Los Pinos Car Park.
We had a nice time wandering around the car park area eating our sandwiches and finding various smaller bits and bobs. A mixed flock of firecrests and goldcrests was a particular highlight as well as the first butterflies of the trip.
an otter spraint and small mustelid sign indicated the lynx wasn't the only predator about and we heard distant calls of green tree frog. At this point Julian came running towards us pointing at a displaying goshawk. To the naked eye I could see a dot rising and falling and so assuming I had plenty of time I dealt with my sandwich first and then raised my bins, failing completely to get on the bird as it dropped behind the tree line and never came back up. I felt bad for Julian as he must have had great views which he sacrificed to get us on the bird which we then completely messed up.
Before we left, I took a photo of the now iconic lynx crossing sign.
In the evening we started at the bottom car park by the river and had a gentle amble up the hill to the river watchpoint. The firecrests were still flitting about and a pair of tree creepers were also working the same trees. At this point Julian found a rather wonderful hawfinch sat at the very top of a tree.
As I stalked as close to it as I could with my camera, a familiar call rang out, and it was joined in its tree by a gorgeous Iberian green woodpecker.
A hoopoe fluttered into the next tree and we walked on up the hill. Iberian Marsh Frog calls resonated up to us as we reached and sat at the river watchpoint and a chiffchaff was busy flycatching just below us. Crag Martins skimmed the river with a lone early House Martin as a few red deer grazed. Alas there was to be no farewell lynx.
Walking back to the car to commence the genet stakeout a few bats were flitting about, Julian’s bat detector confirmed the presence of both Soprano and Common Pipistrelles. There then followed a couple of hours of tensely watching our carefully selected tree. Alas our sardines attracted nothing, no genet nor the stone martin, otter, mongoose or various other plausible I thought a couple of hours of sitting in the dark might reveal (we found spraints and some sort of small mustelid scat in the area that afternoon). The drive back produced at least one new mammal - a mouse. Unfortunately the long-tail told Julian it was a yellow-necked wood mouse as opposed to the possible lifer for me, Algerian mouse. Worse still shortly after that I got the briefest of views of what I think was probably Iberian hare. Our final night at Los Pinos ended not in failure but with yet another magnificient feast.
Day 7
The final day was essentially all drive to the airport. Having dropped off Elizabeth for her flight, we went for a quick circuit of Rio Guadalhorce again. After two visits and nothing but females, I was delighted to connect with a load of drake white-headed ducks displaying their naming characteristic, blacknecked grebe, nice chiffchaffs and a booted eagle was a suitably awesome last sighting of the trip.
