Extremadura: The final countdown!

A lone Montagu's Harrier drifting over the Extremadura landscape

I spent a fantastic Easter period roaming the southern portion of Extremadura visiting places way off the beaten track. Some of the places I visited will feature in a forthcoming tour that I'm planning in September especially seeing that my original tour became fully booked within a couple of weeks.

Keep an eye on my website www.theurbanbirder.com for the tour details but in the meantime, I have listed the species that I saw on my trip. I was particularly happy to connect with vagrant Ring-necked Ducks and a Lesser Yellowlegs. The Garganeys were a pleasure to see, the Quail a pleasure to hear and I was delighted to self-find a day roosting Eagle Owl on a mountainside. A real needle in a haystack job!

But the 14 species of raptor (excluding Eagle and Little Owls) was something special. Extremadura truly is a birder's paradise!

Great Crested Grebe

Black-necked Grebe

Dabchick

Cormorant

Little Bittern

Night Heron

Cattle Egret

Little Egret

Great Egret

Grey Heron

Purple Heron

White Stork

Glossy Ibis

Spoonbill

Greater Flamingo

Griffon Vulture

Black Vulture

Osprey

Golden Eagle

Iberian Imperial Eagle

Short-toed Eagle

Booted Eagle

Bonelli’s Eagle

Black Kite

Marsh Harrier

Montagu’s Harrier – darkish morph male seen also

Common Buzzard

Kestrel

Lesser Kestrel

Greylag

Shelduck

Mallard

Gadwall

Shoveler

Wigeon

Teal

Garganey

Pochard

Tufted Duck

Ring-necked Duck

Red-legged Partridge

((Quail))

((Pheasant))

Moorhen

Coot

Purple Swamphen

Great Bustard

Little Bustard

Avocet

Black-winged Stilt

Little Ringed Plover

Little Stint

Wood Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Redshank

Greenshank

Lesser Yellowlegs

Snipe

Black-headed Gull

Yellow-legged Gull

Lesser Black-back

Gull-billed Tern

Whiskered Tern

Wood Pigeon

Collared Dove

Cuckoo

Great Spotted Cuckoo

Eagle Owl

Little Owl

Pallid Swift

Alpine Swift

Hoopoe

Kingfisher

Bee-eater

Iberian Green Woodpecker

Crested Lark

Thekla Lark

((Woodlark))

Calandra Lark

Swallow

Red-rumped Swallow

House Martin

Water Pipit

Meadow Pipit

White Wagtail

Yellow Wagtail

Nightingale

Black Redstart

Whinchat

Stonechat

Blue Rock Thrush

Song Thrush

Blackbird

Blackcap

Sardinian Warbler

Subalpine Warbler

Zitting Cisticola

Cetti’s Warbler

((Reed Warbler))

((Great Reed Warbler))

Willow Warbler

Chiffchaff

Great Tit

Blue Tit

((Long-tailed Tit))

Penduline Tit

Iberian Grey Shrike

Woodchat Shrike

Azure-winged Magpie

Magpie

Jackdaw

Chough

Raven

Spotless Starling

House Sparrow

Spanish Sparrow

Chaffinch

Linnet

Goldfinch

Greenfinch

Serin

Corn Bunting

125 species

((heard))