Maasai Mara protects a massive pristine grassland and is home to millions of ungulates. A day in the National Reserve resulted in a vast list of mammals, raptors, lapwings, larks, cisticolas, cranes plus some surprises.

Laguna de los Peces is a glacial lagoon surronded by prime montane scrub near Sanabria. Ortolan buntings, red-backed shrikes, bluethroats, Galán’s rock lizards and Seoane’s vipers live in a magical yellow and pink infinity.

Southern Cádiz ensures top-class birding. Local specialties such as house swift and northern bald ibis were combined with migratory birds such as ortolan bunting in La Janda or puffins and poms in Tarifa.

Ceuta hosts different North African birds: African chaffinch and blue tit, common bulbul, Levaillant’s woodpecker, long-legged buzzard, house bunting, black-crowned tchagra, Maghreb owl and Barbary partridge.

The enigmatic Dupont’s lark is extremely range-restricted in our region. Some friends and I try tracking them down at their habitat, and end up having a fantastic migration day with 13 raptor species seen.