Birding Extremadura

My eye caught a movement in the semi-darkness. I could just make out in the dusk that something had landed at the base of a bush, halfway up the cliffside. As I lifted the binoculars to my eyes, my assumption was immediately confirmed. Thanks to an image brighter than my own eyesight and with the magnification offered, I had found the bird that we had been waiting for. Although well past sunset, its shape and cryptic plumage was readily visible. Straightaway I called out "Eagle Owl" and the rest of the group followed my directions to find it. Normally when one considers binoculars for very low-light conditions one looks for as low a magnification as possible, generally seven times (7x). However, the binoculars I was handling were 12x. Now if you ask most experienced birdwatchers what they think of 12x binoculars, hands raise in horror at memories of massive pieces of equipment, barely possible to raise to one's eyes, let alone keep steady, purchased by ill-advised novice...

Sometimes it is impossible to resist being anthropomorphic...describing animal behaviour in terms of human attitudes and motives. Two incidents last week on the same day, at the same place (indeed minutes of each other) prompted such a lapse! I was with a group of four people, David and Kath from the north of England and Liz and Brian from Wales and we were at the wonderful Portilla del Tiétar viewpoint in the Monfragüe National Park. It is the sort of place where one can easily spend hours, just waiting for birds to arrive, enjoying the magnificent scenery and other wildlife. Angel Tear's Narcissus was coming out into flower near where we stood and an Eagle Owl sat incubating her eggs. We spotted an Otter swimming to a rocky bay with a catfish in its mouth and watched as it clambered up onto a rock to eat it. Then it swam out again to catch another. This caught the attention of a Grey Heron which flew in to stand beside the bay. The Otter returned to the bay and ate its fish whils...

Spring-like weather last week has given way to bitingly cold easterly winds. Despite there being clumps of wild narcissus in flower in sheltered places and some almond blossom, we are still in winter here. Despite the arrival of House Martins and some Swallows, and even a Great Bustard starting some tentative paces in its courtship display, the birds too still have a winter feel about them. Hard weather in central Europe has brought an invasion of Goosanders to Spain and two have even reached Extremadura, for the first time ever. I saw a female swimming on the river running through the Monfragüe National Park last Sunday. But the most striking feature of birds in winter are the sheer numbers. Yesterday we watched a big flock of two or three hundred Corn Bunting rising from a stubble field as a male Merlin attacked. It had arrived almost un-noticed, mimicking a Mistle Thrush with a low gliding flight interspersed with rapid flaps. Then it accerated and dashed through the rising buntings...

There is something magnificently apt in the French name for the Eagle Owl - the Grand Duke - an aristocratic aloofness, mystery and power. I certainly sensed this yesterday evening, in the dusk after sunset, in a perfect still calm with the moon and Jupiter starting to shine above me. The first bats had emerged and the last vultures had reached their roost. There was silence. Then, almost inaudible, a muffled "oohu". The next call was louder, more resonent, appearing to come from the dark rocky massif in front of me, the gorge creating a perfect acoustic arena. Then another call, quickly followed by another. Clearly I was now listening to two birds calling to each other. Instinct told me to scan the top of the cliff, where the sharp crisp boundary between the dark rock and the evening sky was visible. And there it was, close to the highest point of all, a new shape that had not been there a few minutes earlier: a large body, rounded head and long "ear-tufts" sometim...

It is a pretty wet and windy start to the year here in Extremadura. Traditionally in Spain children receive their Christmas presents on the morning of 6th January, having left out milk and biscuits the previous evening for the Three Kings of the Orient (Los Reyes Magos). Many families will have congregated in town squares across Spain on the evening of the 5th to watch the horseback procession, along with decorated floats, accompanying the arrival of the Magi to the town. In nearby Trujillo, the Three Kings bring gifts to a Nativity Scene where children portray the roles of Mary, Joseph and shepherds, with Mary carrying a real baby. After a welcome from the mayor, the Kings give a short speech and then the children from the town line-up to receive bags of sweets, before heading back home looking forward to their presents the following morning. This year a downpour soaked everyone in the square just as the Three Kings arrived. I have been making best use of the bad weather to catch-up o...

If you walk along the narrow lanes or tracks in the small range of hills where we live at any time from late November through to January you will be bound to hear the "thwack - thwack" of the traditional olive harvest. Families will be out in their small olive groves, using long poles to hit the branches of the trees, so that the olives fall onto nets placed on the ground below the tree. Apparently the olives drop more easily once there have been a couple of hard frosts. In the large scale commercial olive plantations elsewhere, the harvest is mechanical, but on the small family holdings, often on quite steep slopes, harvesting is really only possible by hand. The purists do not even use poles, preferring to collect the olives in their fingers. That way there is less damage to the twigs (especially to the buds) and the olives suffer less bruising. But this can be very time-consuming when one is collecting the quantities needed for oil. A skilled harvester can however use the...

We were sitting having lunch last Friday at a pavement cafe in the main square of our local town Trujillo on Friday, enjoying a wonderfully mild day (in the garden bees have been at the rosemary flowers). Our son Patrick looked up and spotted a White Stork standing on its nest, built on a platform beside a renovated tower (see photo). The nesting storks on the tops of the old buildings around the town's square are one of Trujillo's many attractions and the souvenir shops sell T-shirts with storks depicted. However, this was 10th December. It comes as a surprise to many of our visitors when I tell them that the White Storks are back on their nests in Trujillo by Christmas, for further north in Central Europe the storks are arriving only in early spring. The fact is our local White Storks are partial migrants, with many of the adults staying here all year round and occupying nests from mid-winter onwards (indeed in the lower altitude flood plains nearby, storks can be seen on the...