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PeterHG’s sixth. Wherever it may take us.


PeterHG

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Beautiful photos and I hope you have a great trip!

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I've always found the common starling beautiful and wished it occurred over here! although our asian glossy starling looks pretty good in good sunlight too. 

 

Have a great trip. I'm green with envy. 

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On 8/31/2021 at 5:03 PM, PeterHG said:

we aim to drive south, to Spain and Portugal. The Pyrenees, Tarifa, Cota Donana. Extremadura and the south-eastern part of Portugal are places we hope to visit.

sigh......I would like a photo of the Bearded Vulture please.

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On 8/31/2021 at 10:03 AM, PeterHG said:

All for now, I suppose. In a week or so we aim to drive south, to Spain and Portugal. The Pyrenees, Tarifa, Cota Donana. Extremadura and the south-eastern part of Portugal are places we hope to visit. As things stand now, the Covid risks and regulations are such that we'll be able to do this. In these times, one never knows, of course, but if things would become complicated or risky we could always break off the trip and be back in the Netherlands in two or three days. We are looking forward to crossing some borders again, seeing different scenery and adding some non-native birds to the list. We'll keep our fingers crossed....

 

Have a great trip Peter.  Where in the south-eastern part of Portugal are you going to stay, in the Algarve?

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5 hours ago, pedro maia said:

Where in the south-eastern part of Portugal are you going to stay, in the Algarve?

Thank you, Pedro. Yes, probably somewhere near Moncarapacho. We haven’t booked anything yet, but that’s the general plan. We are quite flexible, though, so things might still turn out differently 

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Great Phalarope Peter. Hopefully see you in the Algarve. 😎

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1 hour ago, PeterHG said:

Thank you, Pedro. Yes, probably somewhere near Moncarapacho. We haven’t booked anything yet, but that’s the general plan. We are quite flexible, though, so things might still turn out differently 

 

I´ve never been to Moncarapacho, best birding area nearby should be Quinta do Lago/Ludo. but after crossing Spain there shouldn´t be too many species left for you to see ;).

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We postponed our trip a few days and are now leaving next Friday (hopefully). We're spending the last few days before our departure enjoying the glorious weather and taking some bicycle rides. The first one was at our local patch and even brought  two surprises:

 

182/NL 182. Little Stint. Arkemheen, September. I've seen them here before on migration but not often. There is quite a size difference with the Dunlin. A heavy crop, but a good find.

 

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We stopped for a moment at one of the locks and suddenly a large bird approached us, following the edge of the water. It passed right over our heads and continued to larger and more distant lakes. What an experience! They do visit our country when migrating south, but not usually in this area. An Osprey. Already seen early this year, but at a considerable distance. He was sizing me up, but decided I did not look enough like a fish...

 

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Edited by PeterHG
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Todya we put our bicycles on the bicycle rack and drove some 40 kilometres to the wooded area, known as the 'Veluwe'. A very pleasant ride and our picnic stop delivered another great surprise: 

183 /NL 183. Middle Spotted Woodpecker. Veluwe.September. The rarest of our Woodpeckers and I had only ever seen one in Hungary some years ago. It is slowly gaining ground here, especially in the eastern part of the country. On both our bicycle rides I had hesitated about bringing the camera, but I am glad I did.

 

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Great Woodpecker (and Osprey) - have only seen MSW once in Austria. 

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A good day out. It just shows what can turn up locally.

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Love the Osprey and great find with the woodpecker!

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Great stuff and no doubt more to come!

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On 9/4/2021 at 11:43 AM, elefromoz said:

sigh......I would like a photo of the Bearded Vulture please.

Well, here it is. An extreme crop I’m afraid as it soared over a rather distant mountain top, but we saw three, so no complaining here! 
184 / SP 01. Bearded Vulture. I’ probably wait with posting photos of our trip, till I can process them at home, but it’s a nice appetizer….;)

 

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On 8/31/2021 at 9:56 AM, PeterHG said:

When  you look at it closely it is quite beautiful.

 

agree.Up close and in the right light they are beautiful

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Great picture of Lammergeir. Can we all pick a target for you to get for us?:P

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On 9/14/2021 at 12:20 AM, PeterHG said:

Well, here it is.

Thanks for that, I'm glad you got to see a few, such awesome creatures soaring over the mountains. One of my fondest birding memories of all time, in the Spanish Pyrenees, almost magical for me. Really looking forward to your trip photos.

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  • 1 month later...

Time to show some photos of our trip through Spain and Portugal. From Holland we drove south to the Spanish Pyrenees, stopping for a night near Limoges, which was a long drive, but perfectly doable. We stayed in a cottage near Ainsa, at the edge of a remote little village. We had originally wanted to visit the place where we'd stayed a few years ago (also visited by @Galanalater on), but the owners did not rent it out in covid. We found our alternative accommodation through some extensive google searches and it proved a great find.

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The first addition for the BY list showed up in the evening:

185 / SP 02. Alpine Swift. Pyrenees, September

 

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At a forty minutes' drive from the cottage you can find a good birding area, especially for vultures: the 'Miradores de Revilla'. From a little parking area we walked for about half an hour to reach a view viewpoints, offering good views of the soaring vultures. Most of them were far away, like the Bearded Vulture I posted before, but at times some of the Griffons came closer. We would see many more later on during our trip and they never failed to impress us with their sheer size and their effortless soaring.

 

186 SP 03. Griffon Vulture. Pyrenees, September

 

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Edited by PeterHG
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Wonderful Griffons Peter! Great that you started, looking forward to your clicks a lot!

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On our way back we encountered another raptor.

 

187 Sp 04. Red Kite. Pyrenees.

 

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Near the cottage were some bushes that regularly attracted some little migrants, like redstart, flycatcher, whinchat and wheatear. Already on the list, but good to see them there anyway.

 

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We visited the beautiful town of Alquezar and even found an addition at the door of the castle.

 

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Not too many species in the Pyrenees, but we enjoyed our stay immensely. Stunning scenery, great walks and not too much rain. We then departed for Tarifa in the south of Spain, even farther south than Gibraltar. As it is the shortest crossing to Africa (only 14 kilometres) a lot of raptors and storks gather here to wait for the right conditions to cross. Tarifa itself, fortunately, is nothing like the tourist areas around Marbella, Fuengirola and Torremolinos. It mainly attracts kite surfers and birders. We found a nice cottage in the hills just outside the town and when the weather was clear we could easily see the coast of Morocco from our terrace. The beach was rather crowded, of course, but close to the beach is a nice wetland area with some pools, where, especially in the early morning, it was Nic to walk around.

 

189 Sp 06. Zitting Cisticola. Tarifa, September. Fortunately the only cisticola in Europe....

 

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