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The White-rumped Swift Apus caffer , a tropical African breeding species, was only discovered breeding in Europe in the 1960s. This was in southern Spain, near the town of Zahara de los Atunes in Cádiz Province, on the northern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar. Curiously, they also breed in Iberia today.
I couldn’t describe it better than Willoughby Verner did in his book “ My Life Among the Wild Birds in Spain ” published in 1909: “ It is when the Egyptian Vulture or Neophron, as it is also styled, is seen close at hand that it is revealed in all its hideousness. The most recent estimates suggest that some 1,500 pairs breed in Spain.
That trip was fun, as it reminded me of the delights of watching birds like Golden Plover and even Meadow Pipit on their breeding grounds. I see lots of Golden Plovers in the winter, but (like so many waders) they are birds transformed when in their breeding finery. Crakes are difficult to see on their breeding grounds.
The annual parade of birds is happening and the feathered participants are dressed in their best breeding suits. Now is when we can venture into the closest park and see birds of the deep woods, species that breed far from town. Now is the special time that birders look forward to all year long. Summer Tanagers also migrate.
For example, the White-headed Duck is nowadays a rarity in Europe (okay, excluding Spain, I know… that Spain …), but until some 50 years ago, it used to breed in Serbia. The hide overlooking the breeding colony of Red-footed Falcons.
This is central Spain instead, and I am well into the worst time of year for birds. They time breeding so that the chicks are fledged before the height of the dry season. Adult Black Kites have just finished breeding and their plumage is abraded Many Black Kites are in moult while on migration.
True, most of our migrant breeding birds start to return in April, but in May even the late arrivals – Turtle Doves, Swifts, Spotted Flycatchers and Nightjars – finally appear. Perhaps most spectacular of all were two fine Grey Plovers in full breeding finery, living up to their American name of Black-bellied Plover.
According to some sources, when the so-called Pilgrims settled in for the First Thanksgiving Dinner with the local Native Americans, in 1620, they dined on Turkey, and this Turkey came from the Old World, from stock that was originally brought to Spain by Columbus. According to R.D.
Before I was born, it used to be a rare breeding species in mountainous areas south of Belgrade, but became extinct after the 1960s due to intensive poisoning of wolves. There’s an eagle… a White-tailed Eagle , a relatively common and numerous breeding species of riparian forests along large water courses and fishponds.
I’ll start off by naming the univerally accepted species, the House Sparrow propper Passer domesticus , the Eurasian Tree Sparrow Passer montanus and the ill-named Spanish Sparrow Passer hispaniolensis , which occurs from Spain all the way to central Asia and is rather difficult to find in the former.
In the end, it was birding that has taken him from his native Serbia, across the Balkans and Turkey, to the very borders of the Old World: East Anglia and Spain, southern Africa and India, where he chased that country’s rarest owl. A pair of these eagles breed nearby, but this bird shows no wish to reappear and show itself better.
So, yes, it was Spain. Specifically, rural northwestern Spain, at various points along the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route to the supposed burial place of Saint James the apostle and, before that, to the westernmost point in continental Europe, the supposed End of the Earth, the Finis Terra.
Citrine Wagtails are rare in Shanghai but apparently quite common around Chaka, though unfortunately most of the ones we saw were not in breeding plumage. ” According to the HBW, the diet of the Pine Bunting during breeding season is mainly invertebrates. I blame this on covid-19.
Let’s just say that the journey from the capital city, Port of Spain, to the said peninsula could easily run into 2.5 The area is known for being a breeding area of the enigmatic Rufous Crab-Hawk and it was the first place I saw the species, many years ago. hours one-way. As always, an adult Scarlet Ibis shines like a beacon.
First recorded breeding on the island in 2013, this dove is now both widespread and common. Cyprus Wheatears are the easiest to find of the three endemic birds that occur on Cyprus Black Francolins once bred in Portugal, Spain and Italy, all countries from which this handsome little game bird has long been lost.
If you have been on the receiving end of any guided birding you know that a good guide can make or break the trip and João was up there with the best in terms of his knowledge of the local sites, breeding birds and visitors, coping easily with our constant questioning.
At the time of writing, my British year list stands at a modest but satisfactory 139, while my European list is on 173, thanks to a visit to southern Spain in February. Wader watching in spring is always exciting, as so many of these birds are transformed when they acquire their breeding finery.
Yellow-legged Gulls Larus michahellis breed on the Rock of Gibraltar and the late spring arrival of Griffon Vultures Gyps fulvus coincides with the time that the gulls have chicks on their nests. I have been following the local gulls with GPS tags and they spend most of their time in rubbish tips in Spain and Morocco.
Undisturbed through thousands of generations by man or land predators, the birds accumulated piles of poop several meters thick and sat atop them with a proprietorial pride in huge colonies, breeding, feeding and creating even more guano. Previous agreements on territory and shared revenue failed and thus begin the Poop Wars did.
The Black Stork ( Ciconia nigra ) has a very wide distribution in the Old World, ranging from Spain (an isolated population) and northern France through central and eastern Europe all across northern and central Asia to the Pacific coast of Russia and China.
Too many cases in Spain and the USA, if more people bring the virus to Costa Rica, our health system could be overrun in days. Breeding season that is, and it’s just around the corner. Sooner than we expect, the government announces the closing of all borders. It means that spring is almost here!
If it hasn’t begun already, the grape harvest should be getting underway in Spain this month. If the storks have been making the great journey back and forth between Spain and Africa long before people even began making wine, the feature grape of this single-varietal wine – the green-skinned Albariño – is a more recent arrival to Catalonia.
Chamois is an agile goat-antelope with short hooked horns, found in mountainous areas of Europe from Spain to the Caucasus. Birds to see There are 139 bird species recorded within the national park, 96 of them breeding in recent years. Distribution of the Ural Owl in the Tara NP in the breeding season (Rajkovic and Pantovic).
Image by Adam Riley Of the 115 African species now listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, nearly half occur on the islands surrounding Africa or are non-breeding migrants to Africa. There has been growth in the breeding population at the colonies in Morocco (now estimated at 106 breeding pairs and approximately 500 birds in total).
A month later I had the chance to watch these impressive birds again, fishing off Cape Trafalgar in southern Spain. Preparing for the perfect landing Brakes on, landing gear down The Gannets are present at Bempton from the end of February through to October, for their breeding season is an exceptionally long one.
Not only is it common and coastal, its global range is also largely restricted to the Mediterranean, with a few colonies also found along the western Black Sea shores, the lower Danube river, and into the Atlantic along the coast of Spain to the French Bretagne. So there you have it: conservative taxonomy leads to unfortunate common names.
Queen of Spain Fritillary , photographed in mid November Clouded yellow – another common November butterfly For the autumn or winter visitor, the biggest draw is the flock of Lesser Whitefronted Geese that in recent years have been regular and reliable wintering birds on the lake.
And then there are the birds… Green-backed or Amazonian White-tailed Trogon Asa Wright Nature Centre is most renowned for its resident breeding colony of unearthly Oilbirds. The food is delicious, the company delightful, and the accomodations extremely comfortable.
Instead of wintering in Africa and breeding in Europe, growing numbers of the birds now appear to be staying put in Spain and Portugal. Dependence on landfills means the birds spend less energy foraging, especially outside of breeding season. And it enables them to begin breeding earlier, at the best nearby nesting sites.
The species spread north to the Mediterranean, reaching parts of Spain and southern Europe, spread along the Atlantic coast of France and, at times, even reaching Britain and Ireland. They have expanded their range through Indonesia and into Australia and is found in post breeding dispersal as far north as South Korea and Japan.
Not many European countries have their single-country guides (the exception being UK, Spain and a few others with a strong in-country publishing scene). For the last two decades, Europe and the greater Mediterranean have been covered by one of the best field guides anywhere: “Collins Bird Guide” by Lars Svensson et al.,
Following the fall of the Visigothic kingdom in Portugal and Spain after Islamic conquest in the 8 th century, falconry would only became a more firmly fixed Iberian tradition in the hands of the Umayyad rulers of Al-Andalus. A falconry scene from the Severa Bible, a Sephardic bible from early 14th-century Spain.
Black-tailed godwits winter in large numbers on the estuaries of both Norfolk and Suffolk, and we know that nearly all these birds breed in Iceland. In breeding plumage islandica godwits develop a deeper red plumage than their limosa cousins. They are of the race islandica , a sub species of the nominate race, limosa.
and species breeding in cavities are less affected. The virus was also found in Spanish mosquitoes in 2006, but an outbreak in Spain’s avifauna has not occurred (yet – or wasn’t noticed). The Usutu Virus has spread considerably in central Europe over the last 10 years.
These are extremely large stick structures (some articles compare the largest ones to the size of a car) that are usually populated by multiple breeding pairs in separate chambers. There are a lot of pet psittacines out there that escape or are released. Monk Parakeet is the only parrot species that builds its own nest.
reduce traffic casualties amongst Badgers , get the White-tailed Eagle back as a breeding bird, increase the number of protected plant species etc.). Take these large savannah-like areas in Extremadura, Spain, for example (the Dehesas). so far you have focussed on European nature. Does this sound vague?
At a parking lot, Steve hears the song of a Sardinian Warbler (a species that I have rarely observed, often after the breeding/singing season, and as a rule, half-hidden in the foliage) and plays it back from his phone, so the warbler might be tempted to check which other male dares to enter his territory. Steve answers: Bonelli’s Eagle !
Why this one city alone would be named for birds, in this country of 1,800 species, is unclear, but it could very well be a designation inspired by the nearby Islas Ballestas, an uninhabited island group just offshore from Pisco and home to enormous breeding colonies of Humboldt Penguins , Inca Terns , Peruvian Boobies , and many other species.
In 1987, only 27 were left in the wild and drastic action was taken to save the species: all remaining birds were captured, the California Condor was declared extinct in the wild, and a captive breeding program was begun, initially carried out by the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.
In Europe, Lesser Kestrels are birds of the Mediterranean zone, nesting mainly in Spain and Portugal, southern France, Sardinia, the Balkans and parts of Greece. However, in Southern Spain a small number of birds are resident. This isn’t a new development linked to global warming, but was first noted 80 years ago.
Sadly, they no longer breed in Algeria, while in Turkey no free-flying birds remain. (In Intriguingly, there are far more Bald Ibises in captivity than there are in the wild, for this is a bird that breeds readily in confinement. Bald Ibises are curious birds, for they are happy breeding in close proximity to man.
Here in the Brecks – an area of poor, sandy soils on the borders of Norfolk and Suffolk – we have a small but important breeding population. They favour the old heaths, but a number of pairs also breed on farmland. Brettenham Heath National Nature Reserve holds the highest density of nesting Curlews in the Brecks.
This population’s breeding range is covers much of the Eastern Arctic, from northern Labrador up to Ellesmere, in as far west as the Kivaliq region (Rankin Inlet, Arviat). This tiny passerine winters in Africa, places like Tanzania, Nigeria, Somalia. From the Tundra to the African Steppes.
It starts as follows: “Historical variations (1966–2016) in the exposure to inorganic elements in raptors of South West Spain have been little studied.” According to one paper , the Spotted Redshank is the German among the waders, at least in Finland: its arrival and departure on the breeding grounds are the most predictable.
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