BIRDING IN SPAIN'S WILD WEST: Strange Springtime

After an 18 month drought, we had the wettest and coldest winter and spring, which was great for the water reserves, but no so good for business. In fact the spring happened with most of us indoors, but on the days it stopped raining it was truly spectacular.

This year very few numbers of Harriers arrived to breed here, we suspect that after last years’ terrible heat and drought in which many chicks died, and possibly an equally dry and hot winter in the Sahel, numbers have been seriously reduced. We hope that this year’s greener crops and slower harvesting will have helped those that did breed and weren’t found on time by our local group of volunteers. This year we tried to locate nests in a new area where there were both Montague and Hen harriers hunting, but we never saw the tell-tale handover of food nor found any nests.

I’ve also been unable to drive for five weeks after an operation for Carpal tunnel syndrome, which meant I couldn’t take part in much of the campaign.

Here are some highlights of the past few months….