Unless they’re very fortunate and live near a ‘hotspot’, birders often tend to neglect their immediate surroundings in favour of heading off to a more distant locality where a good range of species can be more reliably found. With various constraints on our time this … Continue readingBirding Sites – Vejer de la Frontera a place to explore
Where to watch birds in Andalucia is a feature article we hope might be appreciated by members both resident and those visiting here. This regular feature, in collaboration with John Cantelo and others, will be dedicated to a single birding hot spot each time and … Continue readingBirding Sites – Marismas de Barbate
Reserva Natural del Complejo Endorréico de Espera or, to use its more informal name, ‘Lagunas de Espera’, is tucked away out of sight in the rolling hills east of the village of that name which itself is 15km north of Arcos de la Frontera. Were … Continue readingBirding Sites – A site guide for Lagunas de Espera
It’s sobering to think that it’s the best part of fifty years since I first visited southern Spain with a group of birding friends all on the cusp of going off to university. Our knowledge of Spanish ornithology was limited to the odd rumour, the … Continue readingBirding Sites – Laguna de Medina
Given the popularity of nearby La Janda, it seems surprising that relatively few birders explore the area between Medina Sidonia and Benalup despite a host of interesting species. Superficially, the track along the Corredor Verde dos Bahias seems to offer good access but this route … Continue readingBirding Sites – Benalup – Medina Area
Like so many others, I was first introduced to this wonderful site (which a lesser man might have kept to himself) by Peter Jones. Quite simply of all the many places I’ve taken birding friends to visit in western Andalucia, they always rate the Llanos … Continue readingBirding Sites – Llanos de Libar
Just when will we get rains, our spring has been one of the driest and hottest on record producing parched landscapes that would normally have remained dressed in their green finery until the beginning of June, as alluded to later in my article. In all … Continue readingBirding in the heat of summer
You would be extremely hard pressed to find another area within the whole of Europe as good as Andalucía for birdwatching. Its great diversity of habitats translates into such an array of birds, not to mention other wildlife, that frequent visitors are often surprised how, … Continue readingThe many joys of birding in Andalucía
The summer so far has seen a fairly mixed set of fortunes for my local birds. All the warblers seem to have enjoyed a good breeding season and so too our raptors (one local pair of Bonelli’s Eagle raised 2 chicks this year). However, the … Continue readingA Summer Birding so far..
My last short article was inspired by Peter Jones suggestion; to note the species that we’ve seen in our gardens or land since the commencement of the lockdown. At the time of that piece (April 1) my tally was 51 species, in the intervening 11 … Continue readingGarden Birding and now a lull
