it's all happening...

Yes, spring is definitely here, the little birds are singing and doing what little birds (and big ones too) are supposed to do, and I, like most of you, am missing some of them. So, off we joolly well go with birds and pieces.

First, Antonio Miguel, Patricia, Gonzalo Lage and the ineffable Kirri went to Almería on Thursday, the best being a large - I suppose over 300 birds is large - flock of Garganey, a truly bonny duck and one I always like to see, ever since the first male about 1957-58 at the Beacon Ponds north of Spurn Point, East Yorkshire, one ghastly late March afternoon. This insignificant flock was at the salinas de Cerrojillos, Roquetas de Mar. They also managed to contact with c.20 Dotterel, a super little plover, at Las Almoladeras.

And now to things more local, like the Guadalhorce ponds in the past day or so. Last week I reported on one or two first migrants and in the past 48 hours there have been more firsts for the year. Yesterday, a male Northern Wheatear - interestingly one was at the London Wetlands Centre last week, long before ours. as in fine weather they just keep on flying and overshoot, and this morning a male Black-eared Wheatear and I missed both. On the other hand, I did connect with my first Woodchat Shrike of the season this warm morning and had the first 2 Short-toed Larks of the season, but missed a Sedge Warbler.

We came across a a nice flock of around 20 Yellow Wagtails, all but one males and a single female. This is the best time of year to see the males and the yellow on some of them is a stunning dayglo, and it's also interesting to try and sort out the races whilst they rabbit around in the long grass, a challenge if ever there was one! This morning's group included at least 5 flava, the Blue-headed, and 8-9 iberiae, the Spanish Wagtail, and the remainder we couldn't get a bead on. So far I have seen five races this spring, the others being singles of cinereocapilla - Ashy-headed, thunbergi - Grey-headed and a British race flavissima, the yellowest of the lot and sometimes known as the Yellow-headed. What we really need to see is the Black-headed feldegg from the Balkans and eastwards and which are fantastic. Only the males can be separated, females all look the same as far as we humans are concerned but fortunately the males know them! Mind you, hybrids do occur and the past couple of years there has been a male hybrid iberiae x flava holding a territory down at the ponds.

On the way out, just before noon when the great unwashed masses were entering in their droves, either on foot or on their bicycles with reluctant children in tow, a Nightingale uttered a few mellow notes.

I am down there again on Tuesday with Bob Wright and his birding group from the Axarquia and will leave it to him to write up in his blog http://birdingaxarquia.blogspot.com/ (copy this address and paste to get to it) as this will probably be my last blog for 10-12 days as the family Paterson is off to Tenerife for 3 full days when I hope to renew acquaintance with Blue Chaffinch and see the Tenerife races of Firecrest, Blue Tits and, especially, a brief pelagic to watch cetaceans and (I hope) some seabirds!

And on a last, happy, note, the digiscoping centre in Madrid has told me that my Zeiss telescope is back from Deutschland and ready for collection, so I shall have it in very short order and be happy to look through it again. Even the bill isn't exorbitant for what needed to be done and the chap in the shop tells me that it looks like new.