Birding Extremadura

A flock of Curlew Sandpipers with a Dunlin (David Lindo) Stealthily under cover of darkness they move. And finding them in the first light of day helps me break the stasis of summer.  The season seems sluggish by the end of July. The afternoon spike of heat pushes all life to siesta. All appears still, even the sky is empty. The nights are relatively silent, compared to the amphibian and strident mole cricket choruses of late winter and spring, a gentle soporific hum of crickets broken only by the monotonous poot of Scops Owls. And yet across the skies at night, birds are moving. Remarkably, shorebirds that were in the Siberian arctic perhaps just a couple of weeks ago are opting to cross the interior of the Iberian peninsular, rather than follow coastlines down to their African destinations. We came across yesterday a group of 13 Curlew Sandpipers,  all still showing their russet summer dress. They were feeding alongside some Little Stints and Dunlin. All were adults t...

Green Hooktail (Martin Kelsey) I almost gave up before I arrived. Despite the promised sunny weather (from two independent meteorological sources no less), the day dawned heavily overcast and windy. I had given myself two mornings to visit two riverine sites to explore for dragonflies. The expected temperatures were going to be ideal: warm enough for insect activity but not too hot to be a constraint on my activities. Last year with the prolonged heatwave we suffered, I visited the Guadiana River in search for dragonflies and had to adjourn to the car every ten minutes to drink cold water, so fierce was the mid 40sºC temperatures.  However, the low cloud was not encouraging and halfway on my journey I was poised to turn back, but something kept me going. Providence or serendipity - either way, I arrived at my first stop with the clouds breaking and sunshine bringing life and reflections to the riverside. Ibor River (Martin Kelsey) I was at the Ibor River, a tributary of ...