Help Me, Ronda. Help Help Me Ronda.

We took the opportunity to get some Winter sun, birds, and a family meet up in sunny Andalucia, Spain.

We selected the mountain town of Ronda as our base, desperate to avoid the concrete apocalypse of med coastal resorts. This worked out well, day tripping to other areas for target species, and short trips nearby for general birding.

Ronda's famous gorge/bridge. Legend says stringers would be thrown from the bridge for their crimes. It's sad to see some traditions pass away. Damn the PC brigade.

The villa we had, and it's garden, was a very pleasant place to enjoy the common species in the area.

Spotless Starlings were especially common in the area. A very underrated species in my opinion.

Bowsies

Great sounding species.

Serin was another numerous garden resident.

As was Sardinian Warbler, scratching out it's song at all hours.

Scratchy

Spanish Sparrow were also fairly easy to see, though there were also plenty of hybrids knocking about.



Nuthatch were also extremely common in the pine woods.

 

 Your typical reddish ones. Still nice, but I prefer the northern variants.

Griffon Vultures were exceptionally numerous everywhere in Andalucia, including over the garden. Truly exceptional birds.

Gotta love the Griffs. These one's at El Chorro gorge were very Lord of The Rings.

Helm's Deep - El Chorro

10 points for Griffindor

We struck out to various sites such as Laguna de fuente piedra, Campillos Lagoons, Osuna and Coto Donana over the course of the week.

The Osuna area was a particular favorite, with excellent numbers of great birds such as Little Bustard, Great Bustard, Black Winged Kite and Calandra Lark.

Huge grasslands required constant scanning to pick up Little Bustards

Little Bustard - a long overdue lifer. Stunning creatures.

Great Bustards. Monstrous, astounding beasts. Having one of these do a fly by was one of the highlights of the trip.

This leucistic Crested Lark was a bit on the scary side.

Flocks of Lesser Kestrel were a sight to behold.

Best I managed to phonescope of Black Winged Kite, though we had great views of multiple individuals.

The number of Corn Buntings in the countryside was phenomenal.

Zitting Cisticolas were also ever present.

A subtle but cute little species.

The various wetlands at Campillos, Fuente Piedra and Donana were also beautiful and full of birds.

 

White Headed Duck is another underrated species. One for Tacumshin some day?

The ubiquitous Black Necked Grebe was also enjoyable to see in good numbers and pristine summer plumage.

Of course, you must have the obligatory Black Winged Stilt photos.

Ditto for the obligatory Greater Flamingoes, which, by the way, are brilliant birds to watch. That parade display, beats a Paddy's day parade any day of the week.

Stone Curlews - another one of those species that people tend to forget exists until you stumble across them. Amazing looking birds.

Glossy Ibis - another med mainstay

Higher ground around Ronda produced those desirable Rocky species such as Blue Rock Thrush.

I do like my buntings, and Rock Bunting is a pretty attractive one it has to be said.

Black Wheatear was also numerous.

Superb habitat in the mountains around Ronda.

Down from the higher, rocky areas, Thekla Lark gave way to Woodlark, singing in numbers in Alpine scrub.

What a song.

Rock Sparrows - after struggling to find the species at some of the recommended sites, we found our own at a random location, a flock of some 80-100 strong.

Heading west to the famous Coto Donana, the hill species gave way to wetlands of incredible expanse and density of birds.

High on the agenda were Red-Knobbed Coot, which were very easy at a number of locations.

Photo-bombing Spoonbill

I spent a lot of time with these, comparing them to the adjacent coots. Apart from the obvious knobs (snigger snigger), blue marked bill, and rounded lores, I found the hunched shoulders of these distinctive vs common coot when stood upright.

In the water, the back flattens out obviously, drawing instant attention in a mixed flock.

Ferruginous Duck have supposedly gone quite rare/scarce in the region, so we were delighted to find this pair. 

Azure Winged Magpie was a much wanted lifer on this trip and they really impressed. Not difficult to find, we encountered them in many locations in Donana.

A really enigmatic species.

Always a treat to see Red Rumped Swallow. There are few birds which scream Spring as much as this species. Several giving their distinctive calls at the Azure Winged site were just a few of the dozens and dozens seen over the course of the week.

This, I think Black Headed Weaver, was the only exotic (other than monk parakeet) we encountered, at Coto Donana.

El Roccio - a superb wetland I would love to spend a couple of days by. Some nice bars and restaurants overlooked the site, which would have made for extremely leisurely and pleasant birding.

Bar side Cattle Egrets are something I could get used to.

Little Owl was easy to see driving around in the early morning.

Penduline Tit - Cracking little birds. A long overdue first for Ireland, their piercing Pseeee call is distinctive. It's a species which, whilst present here in Finland, is very scarce and localized.

One of the few Cetti's Warblers we managed to see, though of course, we heard them everywhere.

 

 

 Yellow Wagtail were moving in good numbers. We encountered both Iberian and Grey headed types.

Apart from Grey Heron and Cattle Egret, we only encountered other herons and egrets in the lowland wetlands. Great White Egret, Little Egret and Purple Heron were all encountered only in the Donana area.

 



Purple Swamphen was ridiculously common in the Donana wetlands. Herds of the things everywhere.

This Little Crake was a nice surprise at Laguna Dulce

For me, any trip like this, lifer targets aside, is all about the Raptors. We saw plenty of raptor movement over the course of the trip, but the 1 day at Donana was particularly impressive in terms of number and variation. It wasn't always easy, however, with intense heat haze during the middle of the day.

 

Marsh Harrier - Maybe on it's way back to Finland?

Lesser Kestrel - a beautiful falcon. You do have to wonder how many of these go begging as vagrants in Ireland.

Black Kites were moving in big numbers. Always great to see them up close.

Spanish Imperial Eagle - 2CY - one of the big targets of the trip. Not exactly easy to pick up among the abundance of raptors at Donana.

Booted Eagle - always a wonderful species in the Mediterranean, and a painful dip in Ireland. Less said the better, but a species I hope to find here in Finland someday.

Red Kite was not a species we really thought of in the planning stages, so a nice surprise to encounter several in Donana, hunting among the Black Kites. Great to compare them side by side.

Bonelli's Eagle - a species I have to admit I have just not seen enough of. I have seen the species before in Spain, Oman and Morocco, but we dipped them on our most recent opportunity in Israel. 

I spent a lot of time enjoying this pair as they maintained their nest, aggressively mobbing any raptor of interest that entered their territory.

The best example came when I saw the pair leave their chosen gorge and make a determined flight out into the valley. Their target was an immature Golden Eagle, which was thoroughly harassed right out of the pairs territory, not returning for some 20 minutes. 

The last time I encountered this behavior was in Oman, where the pair in question took out their aggression on a stunning adult Verreaux's Eagle. Good times.

	Species	Scientific Name	Location
1	Greylag Goose	Anser anser	Everywhere
2	Common Shelduck	Tadorna tadorna	Fuente Piedra
3	Gadwall	Anas strepera	Everywhere
4	Eurasian Teal	Anas crecca	Fuente Piedra
5	Mallard	Anas platyrhynchos	Everywhere
6	Northern Pintail	Anas acuta	El Roccio
7	Garganey	Anas querquedula	El Roccio
8	Northern Shoveler	Anas clypeata	Everywhere
9	Red-crested Pochard	Netta rufina	Laguna Dulce, Donana
10	Common Pochard	Aythya ferina	Laguna Dulce, Donana
11	Ferruginous Duck	Aythya nyroca	Coto Donana
12	Tufted Duck	Aythya fuligula	Coto Donana
13	White-headed Duck	Oxyura leucocephala	Laguna Dulce, Donana
14	Red-legged Partridge	Alectoris rufa	Everywhere
15	Common Quail	Coturnix coturnix	Osuna
16	Little Grebe	Tachybaptus ruficollis	Everywhere
17	Great Crested Grebe	Podiceps cristatus	Everywhere
18	Black-necked Grebe	Podiceps nigricollis	Everywhere
19	Great Cormorant	Phalacrocorax carbo	Donana, El Chorro
20	Squacco Heron	Ardeola ralloides	Fuente Piedra
21	Cattle Egret	Bubulcus ibis	Everywhere
22	Little Egret	Egretta garzetta	Coto Donana
23	Great Egret	Egretta alba	Coto Donana
24	Grey Heron	Ardea cinerea	Everywhere
25	Purple Heron	Ardea purpurea	Coto Donana
26	Black Stork	Ciconia nigra	Coto Donana
27	White Stork	Ciconia ciconia	Everywhere
28	Glossy Ibis	Plegadis falcinellus	Everywhere
29	Eurasian Spoonbill	Platalea leucorodia	Coto Donana
30	Greater Flamingo	Phoenicopterus roseus	Everywhere
31	Black-winged Kite	Elanus caeruleus	Osuna
32	Black Kite	Milvus migrans	Everywhere
33	Red Kite	Milvus milvus	Coto Donana
34	Egyptian Vulture	Neophron percnopterus	El Choror, Osuna
35	Griffon Vulture	Gyps fulvus	Everywhere
36	Short-toed Snake Eagle	Circaetus gallicus	Everywhere
37	Western Marsh Harrier	Circus aeruginosus	Everywhere
38	Northern Harrier	Circus cyaneus	Coto Donana
39	Eurasian Sparrowhawk	Accipiter nisus	Everywhere
40	Common Buzzard	Buteo buteo	Everywhere
41	Spanish Imperial Eagle	Aquila adalberti	Fuente Piedra, Coto Donana
42	Golden Eagle	Aquila chrysaetos	Ronda
43	Booted Eagle	Hieraaetus pennatus	Coto Donana
44	Bonelli's Eagle	Hieraaetus fasciatus	Ronda
45	Lesser Kestrel	Falco naumanni	Everywhere
46	Common Kestrel	Falco tinnunculus	Everywhere
47	Peregrine Falcon	Falco peregrinus	Ronda
48	Water Rail	Rallus aquaticus	Laguna Dulce
49	Little Crake	Porzana parva	Laguna Dulce
50	Common Moorhen	Gallinula chloropus	Everywhere
51	Purple Swamphen	Porphyrio porphyrio	Laguna Dulce, Donana
52	Eurasian Coot	Fulica atra	Everywhere
53	Red-knobbed Coot	Fulica cristata	Coto Donana
54	Little Bustard	Tetrax tetrax	Osuna
55	Great Bustard	Otis tarda	Osuna
56	Black-winged Stilt	Himantopus himantopus	Everywhere
57	Pied Avocet	Recurvirostra avosetta	Everywhere
58	Eurasian Stone-curlew	Burhinus oedicnemus	Fuente Piedra, Coto Donana
59	Little Ringed Plover	Charadrius dubius	Everywhere
60	Common Ringed Plover	Charadrius hiaticula	Campillos
61	European Golden Plover	Pluvialis apricaria	Coto Donana
62	Northern Lapwing	Vanellus vanellus	Everywhere
63	Little Stint	Calidris minuta	Campillos
64	Dunlin	Calidris alpina	Campillos
65	Ruff	Philomachus pugnax	Campillos
66	Common Snipe	Gallinago gallinago	Everywhere
67	Black-tailed Godwit	Limosa limosa	Coto Donana
68	Eurasian Curlew	Numenius arquata	Coto Donana
69	Green Sandpiper	Tringa ochropus	Campillos
70	Spotted Redshank	Tringa erythropus	Coto Donana
71	Common Greenshank	Tringa nebularia	Coto Donana
72	Common Redshank	Tringa totanus	Coto Donana
73	Black-headed Gull	Larus ridibundus	Everywhere
74	Lesser Black-backed Gull	Larus fuscus	Laguna Dulce
75	Yellow-legged Gull	Larus michahellis	Laguna Dulce, El Chorro
76	Common Wood Pigeon	Columba palumbus	Everywhere
77	Eurasian Collared Dove	Streptopelia decaocto	Everywhere
78	Monk Parakeet	Myiopsitta monachus	Osuna
79	Common Cuckoo	Cuculus canorus	Ronda
80	Little Owl	Athene noctua	Ronda, Campillos
81	Pallid Swift	Apus pallidus	Coto Donana
82	Alpine Swift	Apus melba	Ronda
83	Hoopoe	Upupa epops	Everywhere
84	European (Iberian) Green Woodpecker	Picus viridis	Ronda (iberian)
85	Great Spotted Woodpecker	Dendrocopos major	Everywhere
86	Calandra Lark	Melanocorypha calandra	Osuna, Coto Donana
87	Greater Short-toed Lark	Calandrella brachydactyla	Osuna
88	Lesser Short-toed Lark	Calandrella rufescens	Coto Donana
89	Crested Lark	Galerida cristata	Everywhere
90	Thekla Lark	Galerida theklae	Ronda
91	Woodlark	Lullula arborea	Ronda
92	Sand Martin	Riparia riparia	Ronda
93	Eurasian Crag Martin	Ptyonoprogne rupestris	Ronda
94	Barn Swallow	Hirundo rustica	Everywhere
95	Red-rumped Swallow	Hirundo daurica	Everywhere
96	Common House Martin	Delichon urbicum	Everywhere
97	Tawny Pipit	Anthus campestris	Osuna
98	Meadow Pipit	Anthus pratensis	Everywhere
99	Yellow Wagtail	Motacilla flava	Everywhere
100	Grey Wagtail	Motacilla cinerea	Ronda
101	White Wagtail	Motacilla alba	Everywhere
102	Winter Wren	Troglodytes troglodytes	Everywhere
103	European Robin	Erithacus rubecula	Everywhere
104	Bluethroat	Luscinia svecica	Coto Donana
105	Black Redstart	Phoenicurus ochruros	Everywhere
106	Whinchat	Saxicola rubetra	Osuna
107	European Stonechat	Saxicola rubicola	Everywhere
108	Northern Wheatear	Oenanthe oenanthe	Everywhere
109	Black Wheatear	Oenanthe leucura	Ronda
110	Blue Rock Thrush	Monticola solitarius	Ronda
111	Ring Ouzel	Turdus torquatus	Ronda
112	Common Blackbird	Turdus merula	Everywhere
113	Song Thrush	Turdus philomelos	Everywhere
114	Cetti's Warbler	Cettia cetti	Everywhere
115	Zitting Cisticola	Cisticola juncidis	Everywhere
116	Sedge Warbler	Acrocephalus schoenobaenus	Coto Donana
117	Spectacled Warbler	Sylvia conspicillata	Osuna
118	Sardinian Warbler	Sylvia melanocephala	Everywhere
119	Eurasian Blackcap	Sylvia atricapilla	Everywhere
120	Common Chiffchaff	Phylloscopus collybita	Everywhere
121	Common Firecrest	Regulus ignicapilla	Ronda
122	European Crested Tit	Parus cristatus	Ronda
123	Coal Tit	Parus ater	Ronda
124	Eurasian Blue Tit	Parus caeruleus	Everywhere
125	Great Tit	Parus major	Everywhere
126	Eurasian Nuthatch	Sitta europaea	Ronda
127	Short-toed Treecreeper	Certhia brachydactyla	Ronda
128	Eurasian Penduline Tit	Remiz pendulinus	Coto Donana
129	Southern Grey Shrike	Lanius meridionalis	Everywhere
130	Eurasian Jay	Garrulus glandarius	Ronda
131	Azure-winged Magpie	Cyanopica cyanus	Coto Donana
132	Common Magpie	Pica pica	Coto Donana
133	Red-billed Chough	Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax	Ronda
134	Western Jackdaw	Corvus monedula	Everywhere
135	Carrion Crow	Corvus corone	Osuna
136	Northern Raven	Corvus corax	Everywhere
137	Spotless Starling	Sturnus unicolor	Everywhere
138	Common Starling	Sturnus vulgaris	Ronda
139	House Sparrow	Passer domesticus	Everywhere
140	Spanish Sparrow	Passer hispaniolensis	Everywhere
141	Rock Sparrow	Petronia petronia	Ronda
142	Common Chaffinch	Fringilla coelebs	Everywhere
143	European Serin	Serinus serinus	Everywhere
144	European Greenfinch	Carduelis chloris	Everywhere
145	European Goldfinch	Carduelis carduelis	Everywhere
146	Common Linnet	Carduelis cannabina	Everywhere
147	Red Crossbill	Loxia curvirostra	Ronda
148	Cirl Bunting	Emberiza cirlus	Ronda
149	Rock Bunting	Emberiza cia	Ronda
150	Corn Bunting	Emberiza calandra	Everywhere
151 152	Black Headed Weaver Night Heron	Ploceus melanocephalus Nycticorax nycticorax	Coto Donana Coto Donana