Griffon Vultures up close 2

Digiscoped head shots of the vultures showing that each individual had it's own distinctive features and were readily identifiable from each other.

Griffon Vultures up close

What an amazing experience.  We were so close we could smell them, and they were a bit wiffy.  The sheer numbers and the frenzy when the meat was put out was breathtaking.

The feeding station was located high up on a mountain in Northern Spain.  To get the following photos we had to be quick as it was all over in minutes as the vultures demolished a huge amount of meat in no time at all.

First a little history about how the feeding stations materialized.  When Mad Cow disease broke out in the UK the Spanish authorities were worried about it spreading into Spain so a law was passed that farmers had to remove any dead livestock on their land.  These dead animals were a vital food source for the vultures so the vulture numbers began to decline.  This resulted in the creation of these feeding stations and the vulture numbers are now increasing again.

Wallcreepers, Cranes & Vultures in Northern Spain

Have just returned from a fantastic few days in the Pyrenees of Northern Spain with some quality birds, stunning scenery and good food and wine.

The idea was to spend a few days in the foothills of the Pyrenees in search of some of the high mountain birds which move to lower elevations in the winter to avoid the harsh weather such as Wallcreepers mixed in with a little walking in the company of Wayne's sister and brother in law.  We felt that we were taking a little risk in that we were early in the season so that the birds may still be high up in the mountains and there was a little uncertainty in what the weather would be like but thought if all fails that we would have good food and wine in good company.

Things couldn't have worked out much better with most of the target birds seen well, along with great weather reaching 25 degrees on some days, stunning scenery and walks with nice autumn/early winter colours and very few people about.

Below is a little taster of things to come.

 Part of a flock of 2000 Common Cranes

 Up close and personal with a Griffon Vulture

 Vultures at feeding station

 Ordesa National Park

 Stunning but a little hair raising road through a very narrow gorge in Ordesa National Park

 Riglos

One of the four Wallcreepers seen.

American Golden Plover juveniles x 2 at Spurn!

Another great day at Spurn that started with several Short-eared Owls and a male Ring Ouzel at Sammy's followed by a showy but a bit distant Richards' Pipit near Kilnsea.  Later while searching for a reported Little Bunting near the breach 2 interesting looking plovers flew up off the Humber mudflats.  Frustratingly they flew a long way before landing again and were just blobs in the heat haze and then a few minutes later flew again heading north out of view  We were quite confident they were not European Goldies but we thought that was that, the ones that had got away, but amazingly things turned out well later in the day.

After going to see a Yellow-browed Warbler at Easington we were driving back to Kilnsea when we passed a flock of around a 1000 Golden Plovers in a field close to the road.  We quickly located a small grey plover in the flock but almost straight away they were all up in the air and gone, typical !  Fortunately they came back and the bird in question was there but very distant and again flew off in the direction of Kilnsea Wetland so we quickly drove down the road, shot up to Longbank where we relocated it with the second bird dropping in a little later.  Amazing.

Pied Wheatear + other scarce migrants at Spurn Point

We decided on another day on the coast, at Spurn Point even though it had been fairly quiet over the last few days.  At this time of year you just never know what can turn up and today proved to be one of those special Spurn days starting with nice views of a couple of Yellow-browed Warblers at Sammy's Point.  We then moved down to the Kilnsea area and got wind of an Olive-backed Pipit at Chalk Bank which is down near the point but the tide was up so we couldn't cross over the breach area for a little while.  Once the tide dropped a little we were able to cross and make our way down to Chalk Bank where the pipit performed reasonably well and then news came through of an odd looking wheatear back up near the breach.  We quickly located the wheatear on the rocks which turned out to be a cracking male Pied Wheatear and while watching this it came over the radio that there was a Citrine Wagtail a few metres to the south which also showed well.  At one point both the Wheatear and the Wagtail were together in the same scope view but missed that photo opportunity.  All in all a superb day.

 Citrine Wagtail

 Juv Gannet

 Olive-backed Pipit

 Yellow-browed Warbler

Pied Wheatear

This would have been nice!

http://theshadoxhurstgarden.blogspot.co.uk

And congratulations to the plodding birder for a great find!

http://ploddingbirder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/acadian-flycatcher.html

Spurn Point

A day at Spurn Point over the weekend revealed a nice selection of common migrants which included good views of Yellow-browed Warbler, Red-backed Shrike, Wheatears, Whinchats, a few Spotted and Pied Flycatchers and lots of Redstarts, including this very showy individual.

Convulvulous Hawkmoth