A few day ago I was delighted to provide a guided birding trip to the steppe for Joppe from Holland. He is an experienced birder and was keen to see Great Bustards and some other target species of this area.
He was staying in Albacete, so we agreed to meet at Almansa railway station. After I collected him, he told me that he´d seen a few Great Bustards from the train – the main goal of the day was already accomplished without my help!! So we decided as a new objective for the day, to get quality views of them.
The first stop was at an irrigation pond where we had a few good sightings despite of the wind… Marsh Harrier, Zitting Cisticola and a flock of Linnet.
Zitting Cisticola
We continued driving in search of the Great Bustard, it was a challenging day… most of the fields had been ploughed recently and the birds weren’t in their regular areas. Despite that, on the way to the next stop we had great view of Iberian Grey Shrike and a nice flock of Calandra Larks. Later we had to stop the car to enjoy a magnificent Golden Eagle.
Golden Eagle
Once we arrived at the next stop by a lagoon, we spotted White-headed Ducks, by that time the wing was so strong that we had to watch them from the car!
White Headed Duck
We still had to find the Bustards, so we headed for the higher steppe, stopping on the way to watch Black Bellied Sandgrouse and Little Owl.
Finally on the top of the hill a fabulous flock of male Great Bustards – it made our day!!
Great Bustard
To end the day we headed to spot where we had beautiful views of Hoopoe, Joppe´s favourite bird, and Red-legged Partridge.
We´d fought against the wind and had been rewarded with a fantastic day. Nice birds and even nicer company!
The species list of the day included…
Golden Eagle, Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Common Kestrel, Little Owl, Great Bustard, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Red-legged Partridge, Yellow-legged Gull, Coot, White-headed Duck, Shoveler, Gadwall, Mallard, Eurasian Teal, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Hoopoe, Woodpigeon, Collared Dove, Calandra Lark, Tekla’s Lark, Crested Lark, Spotless Starling, Common Starling, Mistle Thrush, Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, Northern Wheatear, Stonechat, Black Redstart, Meadow Pipit, White Wagtail, Cetti’s Warbler, Zitting Cisticola.