Category Archives: Aus

New Gallery: Birds

Dear all,

After thinking a lot about it, I have finished the photo selection for a new theme gallery and it is the time to show it to you: it’s the “Birds” gallery.

At the “Birds” gallery you’ll find some photos taken during short travels or one-day trips, which are not included into the galleries dedicated to the “places”.

Some of them have been included in previous posts, so you maybe remember them, however most of them weren’t published till now.

The photos from this gallery were taken at the following places:

  • Andújar: when I go there to try to see the Iberian Lynx I take the opportunity to photograph the little birds that visit the bird feeder that a local photographer has. I really thank him for his kindness and hard work.

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  • Parc Natural del Delta del Llobregat: close to the Barcelona airport, I go there from time to time, to do a quick trip on the morning or on the afternoon. It’s amazing being able to enjoy this little “oasis” at few minutes from home (by car).

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  • Extremadura: a one-week tryp around the region. The photos where taken at the Monfragüe National Park, the Barruecos and the Sierra de San Pedro (the last ones taken from one of the Photo Raptor’s hides).

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  • Farne Islands, Seahouses and St. Abbs Head: another one-week tryp, this time a bit further, to the UK.

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You can leave your comments into the form below.

Many thanks for taking the time to have a look at them. I wish you enjoy them.

See you soon!

Esther

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Sea Birds in the UK

During the past months I had no time to write any post for this blog. I always had something more urgent to do or, simply, the dayly work made me not to think about it. So I would like to apologize for that.

At around mid-June I spent some days in Northumberland (UK) with the main goal of visiting the Farne Islands. We also took the opportunity to visit a Nature Reserve located at the south of Scotland and few other places around the area. We would like to take photos of the sea birds that nest in the area during summer.

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The Farne Islands can be visited thanks to the boat tours that depart from Seahouses. Sometimes it is not possible to land, due to the ties and the sea conditions.

There are different boat companies that organize tours to the islands. We took the Billy Shiel’s ones, which allowed us to spend some hours on the islands. We went 3 days. On the first one (a saturday) we did the “All Day Bird Watch” tour, which lasts 6 hours and we were allowed to land at the 2 bigger islands: Stapple Island and Inner Farne. There was a lot of people, about 200 or even more (too much for us). We were lucky we had booked it in advance thru the net… The tour also includes a boat route around the smaller islands, which allowed us to see the nesting colonies at the cliffs from the water and approach to the grey seal (halichoerus grupus) groups which rest on the rocks at the smaller islands.

In Staple there were some European Shags (phalacrocorax aristotelis), as well as Puffin (fratercula arctica), Black-headed Gull (larus ridibundus), Razorbill (alca torda), Common Murre (uria aalge),…

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At Inner Farne we saw 3 species of Terns: Common Tern (sterna hirundo), Sandwich’s Tern (sterna sandvicensis) and the Artic Tern (sterna paradisaea), as well as Puffins, Razorbills, Common Murres…

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On the second day we decided not to go to Farne Islands (we supossed that on Sunday it would be even more crowdy) and we went to St. Abb’s Head, a Nature Reserve located at the South of Scotland, at few kilometers from Berwick-Upon-Tweed, were we stayed in a B&B.

We did the route on food, what allowed us to enjoy the landscape and to take some photos of some of the orchids we found there.

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Near the lighthouse we meet 2 Spanish guys that went there by car to take photos of the sea birds, from the cliffs… On the way back, we enjoyed the company of a Mute Swan (cygnus olor) family, while we were on the path close to the pond.

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On the third and fourth day, we went back to Farne Islands with Billy Shiel’s boats. Unfortunately none of the two days we were allowed to land on Staple, due to the sea conditions, so the boats departed later and did a longer route among the smaller islands (visiting the grey seals again) and did a longer stop at Inner Farne. We take advantage of the time we stayed in the morning at the port to take some photos of the Common Eiders that were around there.

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On the fifth day, the last one, we went back to St. Abb’s Head and we spend all the day taking photos of the sea birds that were nesting on the cliffs: Northern Fulmar (fulmarus glacialis), Black-legged Kittiwake (rissa tridactyla), European Herring Gull (larus argentatus), Lesser Black-backed Gull (larus fuscus)… among others.

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I whish I can upload a new gallery to the web soon. I’ll keep you informed.

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Extremadura

Last April I went to Extremadura, where I visited the Monfragüe National Park and its surroundings; the Caceres plains, Los Barruecos, La Serena and I also did a hide session at the ones from Photo Raptors, located in Sierra de San Pedro, close to the Portugal border.

The Monfragüe National Park gave us the opportunity of seing a big number of nesting species. It is an amazing place to do birdwatching, even from the car parks located along the road that crosses the park. We saw: white stork (ciconia ciconia), black stork (ciconia nigra), griffon vulture (gyps fulvus), black vulture (aegypius monachus), Egyptian vulture (neophron pernopterus), Eurasian eagle owl (bubo bubo), booted eagle (hieraaetus pennatus) and Spanich imperial eagle (aquila aldalberti), among others.

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At the Caceres plains we could see little bustard (tetrax tetrax) and great bustard (otis tarda). We also saw a few European rollers (coracias garrulus).

The visit to Los Barruecos was a bit stressfull: there were a big number of people (spanish) who not respect nature. There were no guards and most of the people were screaming, running or going too close to the nests, despite of the posted signs. It was so clear that they were disturbing the white storks, because some of them start flying as soon as people get too close, leaving the nest alone, which could compromise the eggs/chicks. The place is so nice, but if the human preassure is always like this…

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The morning session at the hide from Photo Raptors was amazing. It was my first time in a hide like this; I did a few in the past in a portable hide, at a feeder, but nothing compared with this one. This hide offers the possibility of being turned to choose the background and the light direction, and as it has 2 levels, it is also possible to choose if you want to stay up or down. The upper part is better for flights and the lower to take photos of the birds on the ground… we choose down. It seemed that nothing was coming at the beginning… but after half an hour a common raven (corvus corax) came and, just after it, a Spanish imperial eagle (aquila aldarberti) came. After then, it became busier and some black vultures (aegypius monachus), griffon vultures (gyps fulvus) and a Egyptian vulture (neophron pernopterus) came.

Black Vulture

The number of vultures, not only griffon vulture but also black vulture, increased and it draw my attention the way they measured their strength among them, to decide which one started eating the carrion. Sometimes it was enough to approach one each other: it was so clear which was the most experimented one so the other one moved away like accepting its inferiority. At other occasions the strenght difference was not so evident so it was necessary to open the wings and sometimes to show one of the legs, like showing their “weapons”. Finally, on those cases when the strengths were so similar they had to do a small attack, in the air, very close to the ground, usually with the two legs on the front… it never went any further.

Griffon Vulture

A small group of azure-winged magpies (cyanopica cyanus) also did a short visit. Some black kites (milvus migrans), came sometimes, in pairs, and the Spanish imperial eagle come back several times. A small group of sparrows came to collect some feathers for their nests.

Having all these species so close and seeing how they interacted was a quite interesting experience I recommend to everybody.

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