Birds of Extremadura, Spain III

I could not keep you in suspense for long, so without delay here are some of the more 'exotic' species I saw in Extremadura.

Above: A Cattle Egret (Garcilla bueyera). We were wandering around a park in Merida located on an island in the river not very far at all from the town centre. Although I couldn't get really close to them before they moved away, I knew I would regret it if I didn't take a photograph!



Above: See all those white dots in the trees? Click on the photograph to enlarge, count them (c. 50 I make it) - what are they? Mostly Cattle Egrets (Garcilla bueyera) with some Little Egrets (Garceta común) - again on an isolated island in the middle of the river at Merida. This is just one photograph of the nesting colony and I took several of different areas - there must have been 100's of Egrets there.

Above: A Purple Swamphen (Calamón común). We couldn't connect with this species at first, but with persistance I found a pair (with 2 chicks) in Merida. Moorhen and coot were more common. One species I was supposed to be able to see in Merida was the Penduline Tit. Apparently they are more likely to be seen when it is not windy - either they weren't there or it was too windy as I didn't see one. I'll have to wait until another time now.

Above: A Great White Egret (Garceta grande). The long protruding legs and yellow beak make this all white egret a great one!

Above: A Little Bittern (Avetorillo común). It gave frustratingly short views (again in Merida) as it skulks around the reeds most of the time, but it popped out, flew to a different area of reeds for long enough to get a few photographs before dissapearing quickly. Having not seen one before, it was definitely high on the 'to see' priority list. Definitely a highlight of the holiday.

Above: A Grey Heron (Garza real). Ok, so not so exotic but nice to compare to the heron in the photograph below:



Above: A Purple Heron (Garza imperial). Have seen them before - this was the best photograph I've managed so far.

Menorca Birds 2010 Edition 2

This edition features Cattle Egret. I've never seen one in Britain (they're just starting to colonise Britain - perhaps in the same way Little Egrets have - but are rare at the moment). Last year I saw one group of 4 and a group of 7 but only briefly. This year I saw many more!



Above: A cheeky shot of a Cattle Egret I just had to include!

I was driving along a road I saw a group of 13 Cattle Egret flying away. 2 hours later I was driving the opposite way when I saw a number of Cattle Egret in a small grove of pine trees. It turns out I found a nesting site! Would this be an Egretry?

Stopping, I got my scope and camera out to get some superb photographs!



Above: A Cattle Egret preening at a nest site.

Whilst preening, birds are perched in the same place. I found it quite a challenge to get the timing right to get a good photo inbetween or whilst preening! This must happen regularly with digiscoping going on my experiences. I also found that when the birds aren't preening, they're usually moving making photographs hard.



Above: These were the only two Cattle Egret I could photograph 'on the nest'. Views were restricted from the road (the Egrets were on private land) where I was forced to stand.



Above: Another cheeky shot! Some of these birds were seen carrying twigs = nesting.



Above: One or two came down to the ground (presumably for nesting materials) and this was the only photograph I managed whilst it was sneeking away from me.



Above: At another site completely, I discovered 7 Cattle Egret in their natural feeding environment! Alas, before I could get a classic photo of one standing atop of a cow, it flew off not to return.



Above: One early morning I got a digiscoped image of these egrets - a mixture of Cattle and Little Egrets. There were 31 birds in total at roughly a 50/50 split (an accurate split was impossible to to the distance involved).

The total holiday count for this species was well over 30 birds!