Birding Tip: Parque Nacional de Monfragüe in Spain

The Monfragüe National Park in Extremadura (Spain, about 250km south-west of Madrid) is one of the best birding destinations in Western Europa. It’s especially popular because if it’s high number of raptors.
There you can see 3 species of vultures (Cinereous, Griffon and Egyption vulture) and 5 species of Eagles (Booted, Short-toed, Golden, Bonelli’s and Spanish Imperial Eagle). All those species are very popular among birders and are some of the most sought-after species in Europe. Other interesting species are Black Stork, Eagle Owl, Blue Rock-Thrush or Cetti’s Warbler.

In the plains south of Monfragüe you can see Great and Little Bustards, Red Kites, Montagu’s Harrier or Southern Grey Shrike.

In the city of Trujillo, you can see nesting Lesser Kestrels.

The park offers good birding all year, but during the summer (especially July and August), it’s very hot. A very good time is early April, when most migrants are already back, but the temperatures are still not too high.

If you live in Europa or plan a birding trip there, Monfragüe and it’s surroundings are definitely worth a trip. If you want to see raptors, Monfragüe is a MUST.

For more information about birding in Extremadura, visit the following website:

http://www.fatbirder.com/links_geo/europe/spain_extremadura.html

Bad Weather Birding

Do you go out birding during bad weather? If your answer is “No”, change your birding habits. It’s well worth it. Let me tell you a small story of my birding adventures last Saturday.
I was birding near the German city of Günzburg in a protected area called “Gundelfinger Moos”. This is an open country with some artificial lakes. I like that area as I always find something interesting there - for example, I’ve already seen Merlin, White-tailed Eagles, Great Grey Shrike and about 150 Greater White-fronted Geese there.
Last Saturday I was scanning the meadows for shorebirds (Lapwings, Ruffs) and raptors (Common Buzzards). The weather was bad. It was snowing and the light was very bad so that you could not see much colors in most birds. I had already spotted 5 Common Buzzards when I noticed the sixth “Buzzard” sitting on a small wooden pole. But I immediately noticed that there was something “wrong” with the buzzard. It didn’t take me long to realize that the long tail and the overall gizz were clear signs of a Red Kite, one of the most beautiful and most elegant birds in the world.
If I had stayed at home, I would never have seen the Red Kite. So getting up early and going out, even in bad weather was definitely worth it.
The next time you decide to stay at home, think twice. If it’s not a hurricane, going out birding might be a good choice. And remember. There is not really something like bad weather. There is only bad clothing.

Another note about the red kite: Because I am very familiar with the Common Buzzard, it was easy for me to immediately see that the bird was not a Buzzard but a Red Kite. It’s always good to know the common birds. For more about this, read my post:
Do not neglect the common birds

Use a blog to improve your birding skills

There are many ways to improve your birding skills. Of course, the most important way is to spend a lot of time out in the field actually watching birds. Others are talking to other birders, reading books and more.
A very interesting way I recently found is to use a blog to learn more. I learned about this in the Teach me about birdwatching blog. Mel, the owner of this wonderful blog uses her blog to write about birds she finds and asks readers of her blog to help her identifying the birds and give her more information. When you see the number of comments in her blog, you will realize that it’s a very popular blog and many people are participating in it. I want to encourage you to help Mel, too. Remember: When you help someone, you almost always also learn something. Mel lives in Peru and when you have a field guide for Peru you can help her identifying birds she found and photographed. This will also improve your own ID skills for the birds in Peru.

If you think this is a great idea, just start your own blog. You can do that, for example, at Wordpress.com or at Blogger. If you have your own domain and web server or hosting contract, you can use the free and open source Wordpress software. birdingnet.com uses Wordpress, too (for the start page).

Born Again Bird Watcher: another great bird blog

This is another great bird blog I recommend reading:
Born Again Bird Watcher.
John Riutta, the blog owner writes regularly about interesting stuff in the birding and bird world. He also writes regularly about conservation. Recently he has written an interesting article about a ridiculous fine levied against two poachers in Cypress who killed 52 Red-footed Falcons.

The Hawk Owl’s Nest birding blog

Check out the The Hawk Owl’s Nest birding blog - http://www.hawkowlsnest.com. It’s a very interesting blog written by Patrick Belardo about birds, bugs and botany. He is a very active blogger with many interesting articles about birds, spiders, insects and other interesting subjects. He also writes about conservation. I’ve also added this blog to my link list.

Some tips for watching Golden Eagles

The Golden Eagle is one of the most spectacular birds in the Northern Hemisphere. I always enjoy watching them and I am actively involved in a Golden Eagle conservation project in Bavaria.

I’ve written down some tips on how to improve your chances of seeing that amazing bird.

• Best time of the day is usually late morning to late afternoon. Early in the morning is not so good, as there are no thermals yet. But the eagles may be hunting in the morning. If you have time, get up early.
• Courtship displays are best viewed from December to March. That depends on where you are. In more northern countries the courtship seasons starts later. The Golden Eagle’s undulating flight can also be seen outside of the months just mentioned but normally not that frequently
• If you are in a mountainous area, search the edge of the mountains against the blue sky or white clouds. In front of dark mountains, it’s hard to find the birds, but against the blue sky or white clouds it’s much easier.
• Take your spotting scope with you. The eagles or often far away and you might need a spotting scope to identify them.
• Learn all you can about the Common Buzzard and other raptors that can be confused with the eagles
• When you don’t have a direct comparison with another bird or something familiar, do not rely on the size of the bird alone. It’s hard or impossible to judge the size of distant birds without something to compare them with.
• Watch the crows and ravens. They will often attack Golden Eagles, especially if the huge bird gets to close to their nest. Excited ravens and crows may be a good sign that an eagle is close.
• Don’t give up too early. Although huge birds, Golden Eagles are often hard to find. They occupy a large territory (normally between 30 and 200 square kilometers) and in most cases you won’t be able to view all the territory from where you are watching.

I hope those tips are helpful. If you have some more, please add them as a comment to this post.

Tips for finding Middle Spotted Woodpeckers

The Middle Spotted Woodpecker is one of the most sought-after woodpeckers species by European birders. Rare over most of it’s range and not occurring in Scandinavia, Britain, Ireland and most of Spain, the Middle Spotted Woodpecker is high on the wish list of many birders. In this post I give you some hints on how to find this beautiful and interesting bird.

• Search for them in Spring, when there are still no leaves on the trees. The best time in Central Europe Europe is from February to Mai.
• Know the Habitat. You won’t find the species in coniferous forests. They prefer deciduous forest with old trees, especially oaks, hornbeams and elms, but also old European beeches and Alders. Beeches are best suited for the species when they are old, because only then their bark will rough. They won’t mind some conifers, but if there are no old deciduous trees, the changes for finding the species are very small. Sometimes they can be found in large parks. The more natural the forest is, the higher are the changes to find the Middle Spotted Woodpecker, as well as other woodpecker species.
• Listing to calls. Middle Spotted woodpeckers rarely drum. But during the breeding season, they are very vocal. It’s hard to describe bird calls. The best advice is to listen to the calls on a CD. Also compare them to the calls of the Great Spotted Woodpecker.
• Learn everything about the Great Spotted Woodpecker and the other similar species (Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Syrian Woodpecker), so that you know how to distinguish the Middle Spotted Woodpecker from the other species. Often you only get a short and not very good view. Then you have to know for what plumage details you have to look for.
• Look high in the trees. Middle Spotted Woodpeckers spent most of their time high in the trees, searching for food, especially on dead branches.
• Be patient and quiet. As with many bird species, patience pays of. If you are in suitable habitat, be quiet, listen to calls and search the branches I mentioned above.

I hope those tips will help you find Middle Spotted Woodpeckers. Next week I will explain you how to search for Golden Eagles.
For more information about European woodpeckers, check out: http://woodpeckersofeurope.info

Hakodate Birding Blog

In the future I want to share birding blogs I like with you. The first one is Hokadate Birding, a wonderful blog about birding in Japan. There are many interesting photographs on this blog. I especially like all the pictures of the amazing White-tailed and Steller’s Sea Eagles. Those two species are among the most impressive birds in the world. Check out this blog and enjoy the pictures.

Use your spotting scope more often!

Today I was birding at the Danube river between the German cities Günzburg and Lauingen. I was hoping to see a White-tailed Eagle, my favorite bird. At our first stop at a reservoir called “Faiminger Stausee” we weren’t lucky with an eagle but we saw a Northern Goshawk. The bird was far away and although I first found it with my binoculars, I used my spotting scope to get a better look. That made identification of the bird much easier and we also got a better look at this magnificent raptor.
After birding at the reservoir we went to a protected area called “Gundelfinger Moos”. There is a lake there were we found many Graylag Geese and other waterfowl. After walking for about 1.5 kilometer, I scanned distant trees for raptors with my binoculars. I immediately noticed a bird that seemed to be quite big. Unfortunately the bird was very far away and the light was not the best. We tried to get closer, but after walking a short distance, the bird flew away. A quick look through the binoculars suggested that it was indeed what I was hoping for: a white-tailed eagle. Again I set up my spotting scope to get a closer look. After watching it a little bit the identification was clear. The white tail, the broad wings at the vulture like flight all were clear signs for Europe’s biggest eagle.
The point of all this is, that without the spotting scope we still may have been able to identify the eagle and the Goshawk, but it would have been much more difficult. Also we got much better views of the birds.
Many birders don’t carry spotting scopes when they have to walk for a distance longer that 1 kilometer. Nowadays I almost always take a spotting scope and the necessary tripod with me (except for long hikes in the mountains or when birding in dense forests). First, it is often a great help for identifying distant birds and second, it allows you to get a much better view of the bird. When I watch a bird with binoculars I often miss details like the color of it’s eyes (eye color can be a good hint for aging raptors) or plumage details. When I watch the bird through the spotting scope with 40x or 60x magnification, I feel much closer to the bird and the birding experience is much better.
If you’ve been leaving your scope at home too often lately, you might think about using it more often in the future. Beside my Swarovski ATS 80 HD 20-60×80, I also have the wonderful Nikon Fieldscope 50mm ED (with 13x-40x eyepiece). The Nikon scope is very light (about 500gramms) and very sharp. When walking long distances, the Nikon has a clear advantage over the heavier Swarovski scope. The Nikon is also (a lot!!!) cheaper then the Swarowski if you want only one scope and don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Do not neglect the common birds

Do you know this situation ? You are out birding and spot a raptor far away. You point your spotting scope at the bird, excited about what it might be. But a quick look immediately reveals that it is “just” a Common Buzzard. You’ve already seen hundreds of those birds in your live and after a quick look, you move on to find other, more “interesting” birds.

But why not give the Buzzard a closer and longer look? The Common Buzzard is the most common raptor in Europe and the species that you will see most often in many places. I agree that a Lesser Spotted Eagle might be much more exciting for you (and it would be for me, too), but a Common Buzzard is a fascinating bird. When you give it a closer look with a spotting scope you will see that it is a beautiful bird. Common Buzzards, like many Buteo species, have a very variable plumage, so almost no birds looks identical to another. They also show some interesting behavior, especially their impressive display flights, which can best be seen during late morning on a warm spring day (check the edges of a forest). The Buzzards show a wonderful undulating flight, similar to those of a Golden Eagle. If you give them only a short glance, you will miss this. It might also be interesting to find out something about the age of the bird. Adult Common Buzzards have a dark iris, juvenile ones normally one that is light gray. Juveniles also lack the dark subterminal band on the tail of the adults.

Learning everything about the Common Buzzard will also be very helpful once you see a similar, but rarer species. The more you are familiar with the Common Buzzard, the easier will you recognize another species like the European Honey Buzzard or a Lesser Spotted Eagle.

The same holds true for other more common birds. Learn everything about the Eurasian Kestrel and on your next trip to Spain, you will have less trouble telling them apart from the Lesser Kestrel. Learn everything about Dunlins and other more common shorebirds in your area, and it will be easier to find a rare vagrant.

As I already wrote about the Common Buzzard, the more common birds show behavior that isn’t less interesting than those of the rarer species. So the next time you see a Common Buzzard, take some time to look at this magnificent bird.