The Goleta Birder

  Grasmere After two days around Edinburgh, we headed down to Windermere in the Lake District for a couple of days, prior to heading back to Bristol. Although most time was spent on family sightseeing and enjoying the beautiful scenery, I got up early both mornings to look for the classic trio of the UK's western oak woodlands: (European) Pied Flycatcher, (Common) Redstart and Wood Warbler. All three of these species occur within an hour or so's drive from Bristol, where my relatives reside, so had not been a major focus for the swing up north. However, as I hadn't see a couple of them for over 20 years, it made sense to look for them rather than wait for the next UK trip at a suitable time of year. In particular, I was growing concerned about the relentless decline in Wood Warbler numbers and distribution. I used to see and hear this species regularly as a teenager birding in Leigh Woods, just a couple of miles walk from the my home. However within a decade, the species wa...

 Just as my trip to Spain came about because of an inability to stay on Fair Isle, my Northumberland visit was a result of having to reset my plans to visit Skomer Island in Pembrokeshire. Skomer is a great place to see (Atlantic) Puffins at point blank range and my wife was keen to go back there, having enjoyed a trip there with our kids quite some years ago. However, I fortunately checked boat availability a couple of weeks in advance and discovered every boat was sold out until July 22! Since we were also planning to visit Edinburgh and the Lake district, I decided to try the Isle of May near Edinburgh. However, availability seemed problematic here as well and I wasn't sure how close we could get to the birds. At that point, I looked into the Farne Islands and it was apparent there was plenty of availability as long as we booked a week or so in advance. Since I knew that Coquet Island had the major UK colony of Roseate Terns, I started to look into how to see that species. Coinc...

On my previous trip to Spain, I ended up seeing about 60 species of butterflies. I was surprised to find that I was still able to recognize a few. Once Paul arrived, we spent 20-30 minutes or so at both Monfrague and the Sierra de Gredos to photograph cooperative butterflies.   Two-tailed Pasha (by Paul Thompson) At Monfrague, the main highlights were Two-tailed Pashas and an abundance of hairstreaks. We also saw a number of Spanish Gatekeepers and a couple of Cleopatras, although the later eluded the camera. Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the hairstreaks all seemed to be just the same two species. Spanish Purple Hairstreak (by Paul Thompson) False Ilex Hairstreak (by Paul Thompson) Southern Gatekeeper (by Paul Thompson) I then found another butterfly that looked rather like a Common Snout, a species that occurs in America. We saw several of these and they turned out to be Nettle Tree Butterfly, which is in the same sub-family as the Common Snout. Nettle Tree Butterfly (by Pa...

  "The Downs" are a large public recreational area in Bristol along the east lip of the Avon Gorge, consisting of open grassland with some woodland and scrub patches. I frequently spent time here as a schoolboy, looking at birds and butterflies, and it is just a few minutes' walk from my aunt's flat where I have been staying. The Avon Gorge is a National Nature Reserve on account of several endemic plant forms and the limestone flora has a few butterflies of interest. During the 1970s, I found both White-letter and Purple Hairstreaks and subsequent to my departure in the late 1980s, Silver-washed Fritillaries have colonized.  At least a decade ago, a heard of goats were introduced into the Gully, a valley that cuts through the edge of the gorge to the River Avon below. The purpose of this was to open up the area and keep the vegetation appropriate for various butterfly species. An information sign at the time indicated that Brown Argus, Small and Chalkhill Blues all o...

  We had been keeping our schedule flexible by booking hotels as we needed them. This was to enable us to determine the next birding area based on what we had already seen. Given our success at Arrocampo, there was no longer a strong case to visit another wetland. Since Paul needed (Rufous-tailed) Rock Thrush, we decided to finish off the trip in the Sierra de Gredos. An added bonus was that Spanish Ibex was easy to see there. Spanish Ibex (by Paul Thompson) After booking and checking into the swanky and surprisingly low cost Parador de Gredos hotel, we headed up to the Plataforma de Gredos. On the way up we made a couple of stops for lower elevation species, seeing Woodchat Shrike and Western Bonelli’s Warbler. Woodchat Shrike (by Paul Thom pson) Western Bonelli’s Warbler (by Paul Thompson) Since I had seen Ortolan Buntings on the lower edge of the subalpine heath in the Sierra de Bejar, I assumed (wrongly as it transpired) that this species would only be lower down here. At a sto...

  We arrived in the town of Calera y Chozas on the evening of May 30. For the next couple of days, we would mostly be revisiting locations I had covered a few days earlier. A trip out to the fields in the evening struck gold with   three subadult males relatively close to the road. Subadult male Great Bustards (photo by Paul Thompson) We spent about another 20 minutes scouring the area and stopped by a location for a Bee-eater flock I had found on my previous visit. This gave a great photo opportunity for this colorful species. Since there were not any other must-see birds from Paul’s perspective, we decided to try Arrocampo Reservoir the next morning, a well-known wetland area roughly en route to Monfrague. European Bee-eater (photo by Paul Thompson) The previous evening, we had run over a strand of barbed wire on the dirt track through the fields. There was no immediate apparent damage to the tires, but we were keeping an eye on the situation. As we got close to Arrocam...

  After  picking up Paul, we headed NE towards Zaragoza. One of the key target species for this part of the trip was Dupont’s Lark. This was a new species for Paul, but one I had seen in Morocco back in 1988. Despite my failure to see the species in Spain in 1984, I had a high degree of confidence that we would see one, based on the frequency of sightings at the main site. The expression “pride comes before the fall” was soon to come to mind! We made a quick stop near Sauca on the drive north as this was the nearest area where Dupont’s was possible. After about 10 minutes of driving around, we found suitable habitat and began to search. To a background of singing skylarks, we found Black-eared Wheatear, Iberian Gray and Woodchat Shrikes, and Tawny Pipit. There was no sight or sound of Dupont’s Larks and after sunset we headed north to our hotel. I had been ignoring several Whatsapp calls on my phone, assuming them to be spam. On arrival at our hotel, we found no one at recepti...

  With a heatwave raging in most of Spain, I was very happy that my itinerary had me heading up to the sierras after leaving Monfrague. I also planned to search for some lower elevation species that were likely commoner on the greener northern side of the sierras. My initial foray was to be up into the Sierra de Bejar. This far south, most of the ‘alpine specials’ found in the Pyrenees, such as Alpine (Yellow-billed) Chough and Wallcreeper, don’t occur. In fact, the only classic montane specialty was (Rufous-tailed) Rock Thrush. However, there were quite a few birds of interest, headlined by the Iberian race of Bluethroat. Subalpine heath in the Sierra de Bejar After a failed attempt to check into my hotel, where the automated check-in failed to work (I ended up unplugging it to make sure someone would have to call the owners), I drove up to the ski resort on the mountain top. The last KM or so were fairly flat and consisted of a broom-based heathland, interspersed with damp grazed...