Baggins on the Loose: Like Andalucia?

Tuesday 8 January 2013

Like Andalucia?

Cracking site / forum here if, like me, you're partial to a taste of Southern Spain. It's called the Andalucia Bird Society. Click here to view the site

For my money Andalucia is by far the best area of Spain and not just for birding, with its magnificent scenery, year round climate and relative absence of heavy tourism, its a place well worth spending some time exploring .... just as me 'n me old mucker Mark have done dozens of times now and it's never failed to disappoint. Best time to go is anywhere between March and early May and anything can turn up on passage. One of these days I'll get around to properly sorting all my Andalucia records and there are many many highlights but a few stand out ..... Golden Orioles making landfall and flying through the bushes at dawn, my first ever Roller perched on top of a prickly pear by the roadside, a displaying Imperial Eagle at Bonanza, a Rock Sparrow singing right above our tents in the Rhonda Valley and just the sheer number of times we witnessed masses of raptors migrating North over the Straights of Gibralter ...... wetted your appetite?

This Andalucia Bird Society site has certainly given me some new ideas for places previously unvisited and contains a wealth of birding and non birding info on the area, it even has a useful guide to separating Lesser and Common Kestrel (something I've never quite mastered!) .... well worth checking out my friends!

Self indulgent sample of Andalucian birds (all pics from the above site)