Guided Bird Watching Valencia - Page 4 of 26 - Valencia Birding

The Bee Eaters are back!

This has been the first post for a while, so before I begin, I´d like to say that I hope that you´re all keeping safe and healthy and wish you all the very best as we make our way through these tough times. For more than obvious reasons, I can´t write much about any recent birding trips! However, it´s always interesting to see what´s passing through in the skies above Valencia and what´s about in the area immediately surrounding our apartment. I hope that you´re all enjoying the bird life that´s close to you, be it in your gardens or on your daily walk. I´m really enjoying the photos on social media of what people are seeing each day. This week a Zitting Cisticola appears to have taken up residence in a small area of what we tend to call “waste ground” close to our apartment. Especially now, these patches of undisturbed vegetated ground can prove to be excellent feeding areas or even nesting sites. Despite its roadside location, this little patch has also given me views of Cattle Egret, Barn Swallow, House Martin, Sardinian Warbler, White Wagtail, Spotless Starling,…

A short “birding break” in Valencia.

I´ve often said and written that it´s a real privilege to welcome back returning clients, and last week was one of these special occasions. I´d first met Alexia from Sweden a couple of years ago when she booked a day´s birding with us. She subsequently returned a year later, this time in Spring and with her friend Lena, and we enjoyed a fabulous day in the mountains and a day at the wetlands. This was her third time with us, and she´d carefully designed a break to include a couple of days in the historical town of Xativa and a short stay in the city of Valencia as well as two days of birding with us. As we´d planned to visit the steppe, I collected Alexia from her hotel in the historic quarter of Xativa as it´s on the way from Valencia. It was such a pleasure to welcome her back! We continued the journey and after a quick coffee stop, we began exploring. Numerous flocks of Linnet were flitting around, and we also had good views of Crested Lark, Black Redstart, Stonechat and Rock Sparrow. Some scanning of…

A winter weekend birding break in Valencia.

Last weekend I was pleased to welcome back returning client Norman to Valencia. He had previously spent two days with us last Spring when we visited the coastal wetlands and the mountains. We´d kept in touch and he subsequently arranged a winter weekend birding break in Valencia. This time we opted to visit the steppe on day one and the huge wetland site of Albufera on day two. Day 1 I collected him from his hotel close to the stunning City of Arts & Science complex in Valencia, and we made the comfortable journey south west to the high plains. Before starting our birding, we enjoyed a coffee break in a farming village where we discussed the target species of the day. We were blessed with blue skies, very mild temperatures and more importantly, no wind, and our first brief stop by a flooded field gave views of a Snipe, Lapwings and a Reed Bunting. We then moved to a vantage point where we set up the scope and began to look closely at the surrounding fields. Crested Larks were moving around on the ground very close to us, a…

A birding trip to the steppe

A few days ago, I enjoyed a great trip with Greg (Dalí) and Katherine from Australia. They have been living in Sidney all their life and when they retired from work, had decided to experience two years living in Spain. A part of visiting many cities and great places all over Spain, they are keen on discover all the birds life around Valencia where they are based. They were particularly keen to see Great Bustard as they´d never seen them before. We also added Flamingoes to the list of target species as Katherine suggested. After a comfortable drive from Valencia, we all agreed to have a coffee before we began our birding! We did so and then started by making a couple of stops to scan the vast fields. Our first stop gave good views of Crested Lark and the target of the day… Great Bustards, not far from a flock of Black-bellied Sandgrouse – another lifer for them! We continued driving and we had to stop 3 times to enjoy more flocks of Great Bustards, as this was the key species of the day, I was hopeful of getting better…

Winter Press Trip.

The week before Christmas, I spent four fabulous days with three of the UK´s leading writers from the birding world – Dominic Mitchell, David Chandler and David Callahan. With the support of the Tourism Department of the Valencian Comminity, Turespaña, Hotel Gran Playa Santa Pola and the Tourism Departments of the provinces of Castellon and Valencia, we designed and organised this press trip to showcase the value and attraction of the Valencia region as a winter birding destination. With additional input from Carolina Garcia (Reigos Levante), Pau Lucio (Bird Watching Spain) and Virgilio Beltran (Actio Birding), we put together a trip that took us to all three provinces and a huge diversity of habitats. Each day had its priority species, most of which were winter visitors to the area although some special resident species were included too. On the first day, we only had a few hours as the flight arrived in Alicante in the early afternoon. Therefore we headed straight for the saltpans of Santa Pola. Here we soon began to list a good number of species, the highlights including Spoonbill, Purple Swamphen, Audouin´s Gull, Greater Flamingo and Osprey. …

4 Day Birding Trip around Alicante.

Just before our summer break, I was delighted to design and provide a 4 day birding trip around Alicante for two clients from the UK. Robin and Simon are both experienced and very well travelled birders. Robin was on a quest to see all the European bird species and prior to the trip, he had less than 30 species left to see!! His key priorities were Red-knobbed Coot, White Headed Duck and Red-necked Nightjar, but we also added Iberian Green Woodpecker (Picus sharpei) to that. Their flight arrived in Alicante in the afternoon, so once I´d met them there, we made the most of the few hours that we had by exploring the local salt marshes and coastal lagoons. We enjoyed good views of plenty of Greater Flamingoes, Little Tern, Whiskered Tern and Audouin´s Gull. We then moved to a hide overlooking a scrape from where we spotted a Kentish Plover on a nest. The large colony of Slender Billed Gulls also gave us great views. Although we´d only had a few hours, we´d made a good start. We drove to their hotel in central Alicante which was only a…