Spanish Update

Greetings from sunny Spain!

We have now been here just over a week and enjoying every minute. The weather has mostly been good - even the very high winds yesterday were accompanied by sunshine.

The day we arrived we called in to a supermarket after dark on the way to visit a friend for supper. The first thing we heard as we opened the car door was the sound of roosting starlings in the reeds opposite the car park. So the next evening we were there with binoculars and camera just before sunset hoping to see murmerating starlings and were well rewarded. We soon moved from the supermarket carpark to a better vantage point and were able to watch thousands of starlings coming in to roost.

Here you can see some of the early arrivals dropping into the reeds.

 

The dark swathe across the middle of this picture is roosting starlings.

Here they are jostling for position

The sunset was beautiful that night - here are some of the later arrivals.

The sight has been spectacular although we have not had the huge dark clouds of swirling birds that we have seen pictures of. We keep going back in hopes though!

On Friday we visited the Cabo de Gata lighthouse at the far south eastern tip of Almeria province.

We have been there many times in the past as it is a stunning spot but mainly in search of the Trumpeter Finch. It is a North African bird with a small colony in the Cabo de Gata National park. We have seen Trumpeters on three or four ocassions  but this time we saw several and very close to the car. This one was just a couple of metres from the car.

 A perfect view. And they really do trumpet!

Have a great week.