After our amazing week in the Pyrenees, I urge any birder planning a trip to Spain to visit, we arrived Saturday afternoon after a 4-hour drive east at our new home for the coming week. We're now situated near the small town of Les Olivers, not far from the coast and around 20 miles or so from Girona. The difference in habitat as you would imagine is stark, although we can just about make out the snow-capped Pre-Pyrenees to the west.
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| Part of the villa grounds |
The villa itself is stunning and set in its own grounds which includes woodland, scrub and many surrounding fields of various crops. Having unpacked and settled in we sat out for dinner and it wasn't long before I realised that Dazza (my travel agent) had done it again, the wife just never fails me! We enjoyed our dinner listening to
Nightingales,
Woodlarks,
Quail,
Scops Owl and at least three
Nightjars, one extremely close by, plus several Bats around the villa pool and a night sky which was to die for.
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| Woodlark singing over the villa today |
Today Sunday Dazza and I decided on a day of rest, just simply hang around the villa pool and recharge the batteries for the coming week. Of course, birders are like policemen, there never off duty and so we decided to see how many species we could see, either within the grounds or seen or heard from the grounds.
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| Bonelli's Warbler today |
The final tally by the time we called it a night was 33 and here they are!
Quail, Honey Buzzard, Kestrel, Yellow-legged Gull, Turtle Dove, Collared Dove, Scops Owl, Nightjar, Swift, Hoopoe, Crested Lark, Woodlark, Barn Swallow, White Wagtail, Nightingale, Sardinian Warbler, Subalpine Warbler, Bonelli's Warbler, Firecrest, Great Tit (nesting), Crested Tit, Woodchat Shrike, Magpie, Jay, Bee-eater, Spotless Starling, House Sparrow, Linnet, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Serin, Zitting Cisticola, Corn Bunting...
