Although busy, June provided some time to catch up with local summer specialties including Eleonora’s falcon, common rock thrush or western olivaceous warbler, plus a welcome variety of waders in El Hondo.

Early spring in Isla Grosa ringing campaign produced passerine migration: Iberian chiffchaffs, subalpine warblers, pipits, wheatears, nightingales and an exceptionally early garden warbler, the first of the season.

March provided a nice mix of lingering winter birds and early migrants. Seawatching and spending time in a couple of islands were garnished with the arrival of a mega Moussier’s redstart.

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.

Mild winters in Alicante draw Alpine accentors, thrushes, finches and buntings to the mountains, raptors and waterfowl to wetlands and provide some good seawatching along the shores, plus some winter oddities.

Ría de Santoña in New Year’s provides cracking winter specialties: brant geese, horned grebes, loons and waders. Mega red-breasted geese and redpolls are bonus additions to an awesome short trip.

On a legendary seawatching day with friends, while twitching Richard’s pipit and ring-billed gull, we connect with great skua, black-legged kittiwake and Castellón’s 4th red-throated loon and 10th velvet scoter.

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 Saturday with my brother in Tabarca resulted in some fun snorkeling but few birds. However, migration is in full swing, and a flock of dotterels has returned to El Hondo again.

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.

Estaca de Bares is the ultimate seawatching location in the Western Palearctic, offering dozens of shearwaters, skuas and jaegers, two fulmars, a Wilson’s storm petrel and a cracking brown booby.

The Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park is composed of four small archipelagos. Among them, Sálvora bears different herp gems: Boscá’s newt, Lusitanic wall lizard and the island-endemic ocellated lizard race.

The fieldwork of a new ornithological project in Cabo Cope y Puntas de Calnegre provided great views of trumpeter finches and rufous-tailed scrub-robins, as well as numerous migrants and other highlights.

A pelagic outing reaches Illes Columbretes, a Mediterranean archipelago inhabited by the Eleonora’s falcon. Dozens of shearwaters and gulls, storm petrels, parasitic jaegers and sunfish add to the show.

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.