The Blog
Here you can find all the posts we’ve added so far, for you to read and share if you dare. Search for a certain species, topic or location or just enjoy scrolling down and pick up a post of your interest. Also, feel free to contact us if you want to comment or contribute!
A Boyd’s Shearwater in a Barolo colony
Here I present a recent record of a male Boyd’s Shearwater that visited a Barolo colony on S La Gomera, Canary Islands. A discussion of this bird’ identification on sound only is included, along with a description of male Barolo Shearwater sound repertoire and a list of the previous Boyd’s Shearwater records on the Canary Islands.
Iberian Chiffchaff identification: the state of the art
A compilation of pretty much everything we know about the identification of Iberian Chiffchaff. Focused on field views assessment of structure, plumage and moult, with a quick look through voices of pure and mixed singers. Finally, ‘Scandinavian’ Common Chiffchaff is described as the main potential pitfall in a vagrant context.
Middle Spotted Eagle at Taqah, Oman
Despite hybridisation between Lesser and Greater Spotted Eagles is well documented, a close encounter with a 1st cycle hybrid in Taqah, Oman, in February 2019, offered an unparalleled opportunity to study the plumage of a fairly extreme example. Some photos of this bird are included and captioned, depicting every id feature found in the literature.
Shades of Grey
Strong Easterlies in April mean only one thing to Iberian Med coast birders: Collared Flycatchers. However, the Eastern galore we experienced in April 2019 exceeded all expectations. Over one hundred Collared Flys were reported only in Catalonia and of course some individuals arose the debate. A good chance to study females and presumed hybrids, both included here in this post.
Sykes’s vs. Egyptian Nightjars
Nightjars are famous for their camouflage and their night habits. Some species remain largely unknown and Sykes’s Nightjar is surely one of them. After the first for Oman, found by some friends in 2016, the species must be in every WP birder radar so it’s good to know how does it look like. We had amazing views of an Egyptian Nightjar in Muntasar Oasis, Oman, and started to wonder how to tell them apart when seen perched. Spoiler alert: after a very close scrutiny, I still don’t know yet.
Moult in early spring Saunders’s Terns in Oman
Little and Saunders’s Terns are very similar even in breeding plumage but at least there are some keys to follow. In wintertime, however, the identification relies mainly on the moult of flight feathers and still little has been done in that respect. The presence of a large flock of mainly Saunders’s Terns in Khawr Dhurf, Oman, in February 2019, provided prolonged views and photographs of this species, which were then used to perform this moult analysis.
South Polar Skuas at a Glance
We now know South Polar Skuas migrate south following a more easterly flyway but records from this side of the Atlantic are still scattered. However, according to recent experiences, the species could well be regular off Galicia, where some birds have been positively identified in recent years. I thought it could be useful to share here a captioned collection of ‘big-skuas’ photos taken during my surveys across this area, starting with the most obvious Great and ending with the real SPS, trying to depict pretty much everything in between.
Dark Blue Almost Black
These days people -me included- only add photos to their rarity submission forms and skip the description, in their belief that a picture is worth a thousand words. Although this statement remains true in most cases, when the observation is brief, a single photo can lead to the wrong conclusion, even when we see something as 100% real. This Grey-headed Wagtail is an extreme case of how light can drive us mad.