James Dee Birding

 

 

16th April 2017 - Los Lances - Tarifa in Spain I spent five hours at Los Lances from 11am, hoping to see a recently sighted "Lesser Crested Tern".  I didn't see anything like that but species of note recorded whilst there; 12 Collared Pratincole, 21 Gull-billed Tern , 1 Caspian Tern , 2 Little Tern , 8 Black Stork , 50 White Stork , 1 Egyptian Vulture , 1 Lesser Kestrel , 2 Woodchat Shrike , 1 Greater Short-toed Lark  and 1 Red-rumped Swallow. At some point whilst there, local legend, and good friend, Diegui Jesús Herrera Ortiz came along to see what's what.  At around 4pm, we walked back towards Tarifa.   As we approached the town a medium sized falcon came in over the sea and whizzed past in front of us.  We stopped dead in our tracks, turned to each other and simultaneously exclaimed, " Eleonora's !"  It arced up and flapped it's wings to gain height for the rising terrain, heading over the Western edge of town and out up into the hills.  ...