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Spain, Winter 2026: Before the Rain

  Some months ago, I happened to be reading an article about Cardiff Airport in Wales Online and one of the reader comments mentioned how poor Cardiff was in flights compared to Bristol Airport. This was news to me, having left the UK before the explosion of low-cost airlines. I immediately checked into the situation and found that there were flights to many cities in Europe from Bristol and that these were typically a bit cheaper than flying from Heathrow. In fact, if you were prepared to fly with no change of clothes, as my birding friend Chris Lamsdell amusingly put it, the flights were much cheaper. I decided to take advantage of this during future trips to see my relatives in Bristol and hatched a plan for a late winter trip to Spain to catch up with the three species I had tried for and missed the previous year, as well as add various woodpeckers, Lammergeier and Wallcreeper. I allowed for nine full days because of potential issues finding the woodpeckers and, of course, Du...
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Some Local Birding in early 2026

  Birding activity in Santa Barbara peaks in the last four months of the year. Birders are very active in September and October looking for migrants and then the arrival of winter visitors and scouting for the Christmas Bird Counts keeps things going until the end of the year. However, after a brief burst of activity in the first week or so of the year as people look for birds found on the Christmas Counts or get started on year lists, activity dies down. Santa Barbara County lacks large concentrations of wintering waterbirds or gulls, so one can’t really hope that something good was missed earlier. I spent most of my time   in January and February searching along the Gaviota Coast looking for loons (divers in UK parlance) and grebes and, to a lesser extent, seaducks. I am always hoping for an Arctic or Yellow-billed Loon (Black-throated or White-billed Diver) and on one of my visits I did observe a seemingly-Pacific-like loon with a white thigh patch and an apparent bump on...
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Hawaii: The Big Island

  Remy was keen on taking a winter break in Hawaii, so we arranged a trip to the “Big Island” where we had spent our honeymoon almost 30 years ago. We based ourselves in Kona, since we found a couple of great snorkeling sites there on another visit a few years ago. We also gave ourselves a night in the Volcanoes National Park. This wasn’t a birding trip but I negotiated an early morning trip to Waikaloa up the coast and then a half day trip up to native forest along Saddle Road. Other than that, it was very much a case of casual birding around where we were staying or hiking. Unlike many US birders who make a real effort to see all the species introduced to the islands, I cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the incoherent mix of exotics on the islands. I naturally ran into many of them but was more interested in studying Pacific Golden-Plovers, which are scattered around the lowlands in small numbers and much commoner than on the coast of California. Pacific Golden-Plover Ruddy T...
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Belated Mexico: The Bat Cave and Quintana Roo

  To break up the long drive to Cancun, we planned to stop at Xpujil, near the eastern edge of the Calakmul Biosphere for a couple of days. Starting on the eastern edge of Calakmul and continuing east towards the coast, the forest becomes wetter and many of the species that occur in eastern Chiapas also occur there, although their status is much less well-known. Given that we had limited knowledge of how to access the various sites and we knew that at least some of them were on ejido lands, we hired Claudio Lopez (+52 983 182 6203 on Whatsapp) as a birding guide to maximize our efficiency and avoid potential problems. Claudio turned out to have exceptionally sharp vision, which made both Paul and myself keenly aware that our age was catching up with us! Before we reached Xpujil we decided to stop off at the bat cave near the entrance to Calakmul. After arriving there, we discovered we had to wait until a guided tour in the evening before we could go in. After waiting about an hou...
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Belated Mexico: Eastern Chiapas

  I had missed some species during my first trip to eastern Chiapas a few years ago. These mainly fell into two camps: Straight-up misses and a group of easy-to-hear but difficult-to-see species such as tinamous. I was hoping that the latter group might be a bit more responsive to playback than in the winter but that proved to be a vain hope. Realistically, I need to return in the rainy season, when breeding activity peaks. When I had begun to plan the trip, I discovered that the classic birding locations at Bonampak and Xaxchilan were not currently accessible to tourists because cartels were operating heavily in the area to detain would-be-USA immigrants and force them to pay for passage to the USA. As a result, I focused my trip on a visit to Naha, where the local birder, Miguel Garcia Cruz (+52 916 164 3094 on Whatsapp), said things were OK. Naturally, after making all the arrangements and bookings, there was a change in the presidential administration in the USA. The new Tr...
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Belated Mexico: The Usumacinta Floodplain

  The Usumacinta rises in the highlands of southern Chiapas and flows north and east towards the Gulf of Mexico (Sorry Mr. President, but I really don’t like name changes for the sake of it, having suffered through the ridiculous flip-flopping on North American birds names the last three decades). There are extensive marshes along much of its lower reaches and these offer a whole range of species not possible in the dry Yucatan. Leaving Calakmul a day early gave us a chance to spend a couple of days in the area rather than just short stops while traveling between Chiapas and Calakmul. We initially aimed to take the road to Jonuta, where we hoped to find a hotel for the night. Camino Palizada, which leads to Jonuta, passes through seasonal wetlands that are mostly dried up by spring. We stopped at any remaining wet areas that held birds. One key target was Jabiru, which was a lifer for Paul and a Mexican tick for me. Jabirus are most common in the immediate aftermath of the wet ...
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