Monday 17 February 2014

My Navarra Region bird list

Griffon Vulture
What an amazing few days I have just had!

Navarra is a great place for birding and a shot hop from the UK.

A full version of my memorable trip to the Navarra Region in Spain will appear in a future issue of Bird Watching Magazine.

Meanwhile, here's my trip list


Navarra Region 13 -16 February 2014

Great Crested Grebe
Little Grebe
Cormorant
Cattle Egret
Grey Heron
White Stork
Mute Swan
Greylag
Canada Goose 
Shelduck 
Mallard
Gadwall
Pintail
Shoveler
Wigeon
Teal
Red-crested Pochard
Pochard
Ferruginous Duck
Tufted Duck
Lammergeier
Griffon Vulture
Golden Eagle
Red Kite
Marsh Harrier
Hen Harrier
Common Buzzard
Sparrowhawk
Goshawk
Kestrel
Peregrine
Merlin
Red-legged Partridge
((Water Rail))
Coot
Lapwing
Green Sandpiper
Snipe
Ruff
Black-headed Gull
Yellow-legged Gull
Black-bellied Sandgrouse
Pin-tailed Sandgrouse
Rock Dove
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Kingfisher
Green Woodpecker
Middle Spotted Woodpecker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Skylark
Crested Lark
Thekla Lark
Calandra Lark
((Dupont’s Lark))
Crag Martin
Meadow Pipit
White/Pied Wagtails
Grey Wagtail
Dipper
Wren
Robin
Blue Rock Thrush
Black Redstart
Stonechat
Song Thrush
Redwing
Mistle Thrush
Fieldfare
Blackbird
Blackcap
Sardinian Warbler
Dartford Warbler
Zitting Cisticola
((Cetti’s Warbler))
Chiffchaff
((Goldcrest))
Firecrest
Great Tit
Coal Tit
Blue Tit
Crested Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Nuthatch
Wallcreeper
((Common Treecreeper))
Short-toed Treecreeper
Iberian Grey Shrike
Magpie
Jay
Red-billed Chough
Alpine Chough
Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
Raven
Common Starling
Spotless Starling
House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow
Rock Sparrow
Chaffinch
Linnet
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
Serin
Reed Bunting
Cirl Bunting
Corn Bunting

108 Species

3 Lifers

((heard))

Saturday 15 February 2014

Still wandering around Navarra

 A drifting female Marsh Harrier
Thekla Lark
 Common Starling
 1st winter Golden Eagle
 The same eagle powering past
Eurasian Serin

Friday 14 February 2014

Wanderings around Navarra, Spain

 A pair of Griffon Vultures
 A female Cirl Bunting looking up!
 The gorge at Arbaiun
 A flyby Red Kite
 Lammergeier
A slightly better shot

Thursday 13 February 2014

Urban birding in and around Pamplona, Spain

 TUB with artist & bird guider Gorka Gorospe
 Angry skies over Zolina
 It looks like rain
The cliffs at Etxauri
The limestone detail
 Spottless Starling
 White Stork coming in to land
 Now a pair, they settle down for a touch of courtship
 An overflying Griffon Vulture
Chiffchaff in Pamplona

Sunday 9 February 2014

The end of a very long line

The very last edition of Birding World
I started this year with all the best intentions of keeping a regularly updated blog with all my latest news and views. Well, so much for that. My main excuse is the fact that I was frantically finishing my next book - Look Up! How To Be An Urban Birder.

Had I not been so preoccupied I would have been lamenting the loss of Birding World which published its last edition in December after 27 years in early January. I will really miss this monthly magazine because of the great ID articles that they carried, the publication's pioneering attitude towards splitting species and of course, the monthly rarity updates for not only the UK but for Europe as well. The final issue also showed me how out of touch I had become. Birding World always educated me with latest splits so when I saw the editorial covering the occurrences of Laurence's Brent Goose I thought, 'What the hell is that? Never heard of it!'

I have had a long connection with Birding World because I knew co-founder, Richard Millington from back in the day. Back then the magazine was known as 'Twitching' and was produced quite cheaply as a black-and-white stapled print out. At the time I was working at The Sunday Times and I managed to secure an editorial piece for the magazine in the paper. A thankful Richard Millington gave me five years free subscription thereafter and my love affair with Twitching and latterly Birding World began.

I guess with the advent of the internet and with it the fact that the up to date birding news is now instantly available must have taken its toll on subscriptions. But there is something very visceral about receiving the news in the form of a magazine that you can file away and refer back to. Yes, I will miss it. Not least because it made me visit my mum on a monthly basis. You see, the address for my subscription was at her house. I never changed it. Don't get me wrong, I love visiting my old mum but it made her feel good to hand over my copy of Birding World still wrapped in its delivery cellophane. Good things never last.