Flooding and plowing of rice paddies brings thousands of gulls to l’Albufera. Despite the intense winds, we connect with several common gulls, Caspian gulls, herring gull, little gull plus bonus ring-necked ducks.
Our only city visited in India provided hornbills and hundreds of kites. Nearby Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary hosts pelicans, eagles, herons and ibises. Mysore blends culture and vibrant city life with some great birding.
A fantastic weekend in Delta de l’Ebre with friends resulted in many bonus species including mega white-tailed lapwing, pectoral sandpipers, buff-breasted sandpipers, Pacific golden plover or western reef heron.
A Cape gull from Southern Africa and a laughing gull from the Americas have shown up in Northern Spain. We enjoyed awesome birding while twitching these stunners on a roadtrip.
April in Spain calls for the steppe. Little and great bustards are busy with their spectacular displays, a must-see show which ensures views of larks, shrikes or orchids in awesome green-and-red landscapes.
Arabuko Sokoke is the largest remnant of East African coastal forest. Walking its trails produced endemic Sokoke scops-owl, Amani sunbird and golden-rumped sengi and a close encounter with an elephant!
Two days birding l’Albufera finished with terrific sunsets. Highlights included a mega greater yellowlegs, wintering jack snipes, a common scoter, the local sacred ibis, and numerous waders and waterfowl.
An intense full day watching birds in Alicante delivers a great final count for our party of three. Different migrant birds seen include four different Eurasian hobbies, definitely the top species of the day.
September brought the opportunity to look for long-awaited species: dotterel and northern bald ibis. Bee-eaters, wheatears, flycatchers, honey buzzards, and whinchats showed up everywhere.
A long drought is especially evident by June. Rufous-tailed rock thrush, tawny pipit, pin-tailed sandgrouse, stone martens, and Lataste’s vipers are some specialties found with friends and family.
Amidst an avian botulism outbreak, several birds are released after recovering in the local wildlife rescue center. These include the common pochard and ferruginous duck, both locally and globally threatened.
