Trip Reports

This week I very much enjoyed a day´s birding around the wetlands of Valencia with Simon and Sarah from England. They were staying in the historical quarter of Valencia, combining the rich culture of the city with a guided birding trip to make an ideal pre-Christmas break. They were both keen birders and lovers of the outdoors, so we make a few tweaks to the wetlands trip to include a little more walking. The day began quite cloudy with a cold northerly breeze, so after the short drive from Valencia, we wrapped up and headed out along the beach. The…

At the end of last month, I had the pleasure of meeting Liu and Chung from Singapore who were travelling around Spain on a bird photography holiday. Prior to their departure, we´d had various email exchanges, after which they´d opted to include a few days in Valencia and specifically to do a two-day trip with me, one day in a photo-hide and the other day out in the field. Golden Eagle On Day 1, we had quite an early start as we had to drive to the mountains of the interior of Valencia to reach a photography hide designed to…

Last weekend I provided a trip for a couple of birders from Valencia. The trip was booked as a birthday present for Cristina by one of her friends, and after a few email exchanges, we opted to spend the day on the steppe. The weather on the day was perfect – very little wind, clear blue skies and no rain. The steppe area can be very cold in autumn and winter so comfortable, sunny days are a luxury! Having made the journey from Valencia, and enjoyed the obligatory morning coffee stop, we headed out across the fields in search of…

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of providing a trip for a couple from Orkney who, together with their family, wanted a day of guided birding as a way of celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary! What a privilege for me to be part of such a special day, and how wonderful that they opted for a birding trip as a means of celebrating it! They were staying at a hotel by the coast in Denia on the Costa Blanca, and as they were a group of five people, I had the help of my good friend Bea, who is not…

The steppe area of our region is an ever-changing environment of rolling cereal fields, vineyards, arable land, lagoons and scrub. In the scorching heat of midsummer, almost all of the lagoons dry up, after the cereal harvest the land is ploughed bare, and in the winter, temperatures plummet to well below freezing. These dramatic changes mean that the bird life of this environment can also be very fluid, and one has to “learn” the area in order to get the most from it. As with anything, the required effort makes the prize yet more valuable and the steppe area seldom…

I recently provided a bespoke trip for Tony, a client who lives in the Alicante region and wanted to discover a few places where he can visit to photograph birds in the field. As we only had one day, we decided to focus on wetland sites, visiting four hides throughout the area. After a morning coffee and a chat about his priorities etc, we made the short journey to the first hide which overlooked a large lagoon. We saw Reed Warbler and Cetti’s Warbler in the reeds, as well as Black-necked Grebe, White Headed Duck and Marsh Harrier. Black-necked Grebe…