13 October: to Spain on a Ryanair press trip, flew to Reus (Ryan's Barcelona, but actually a good hour and a half away...), where picked up and whisked off an hour or so inland to the village of Seros, near Lleida. Installed in smart village house, where welcomed by smiling owners and given pan tomate and a basket of unfeasibly large fruit. Monstrous plums of three varieties and peaches the size of footballs.
14 October: emerged at 8am or so for a quick sortie outside. A white stork was perched on its nest on the village church – seems a bit late, but apparently more and more are overwintering in the area and spending their time at the local dump. Indeed, why fly all the way to the Serengeti when you can rifle quite happily through refuse just down the road? Then collected by Maria Angeles Lacruz, bird tourism person in Seros, and her husband Juan – an ace birder – and off we head to Aiguabazzeig, the confluence of two rivers, the Segre and the Cinca. A beautiful spot, all the more so because the banks are lined with lush vegetation of reed, tamarisk etc in what is otherwise an arid and unforgiving landscape beyond. Cormorants, great white heron and grey herons all busy fishing, with a kingfisher zipping about. Then a goshawk blasted overhead - the first of what were to be many raptors during the trip. Further downstream we were shown the island site of a heronry (Illa dels Martinets), where several species nest - none present at this time of year, of course. A good site for otters, apparently. The dryland/river interface was very interesting, especially with the former mine workings and derelict buildings along one bank – spotless starlings seen there.
View over a stretch of the Segre, with a corner of Illa dels Martinets bottom right
From there we drove along the river to the small town of Mequinenza, located overlooking a reservoir of the same name (and which had obliterated a second village). More great scenery, and interesting birds too: black wheatear and blue rock thrush on the rocks high above the water, plus a superb male peregrine sitting on a ledge and found by accident as we looked for the wheatear. The local subspecies has buff-coloured underparts - couldn't quite see that, but apparently....
Fortress on the hill above Mequinenza
We then drove onto la Granja d'Escarp and an impressive tract of steppe. This has become one of the most endangered habitats in Catalunya; home to a whole raft of specialised birds, it traditionally was used for spasmodic cereal farming and low-density olive groves and almond orchards, with some mining and quarrying here and there. The area became depopulated during the twentieth century, as people drifted to the towns and villages, but the advent of extensive artificial irrigation in the 1970s changed things dramatically. Suddenly it became possible to plant extensive orchards of peaches, plums, cherries, pears and pistachios, and that's what now carpets much of what was hitherto open steppe. Not many people live here – there are many tumbledown old farmsteads – but they are clearly farming it now. Thankfully no new irrigation systems are allowed, so the extent of the orchards should not expand further.
Ruined farmhouse near La Granja - saw a flock of 25 choughs
wheeling around it, plus griffon vultures overhead.
The steppe landscape has a curious, abandoned feel about it. Seemingly barren as we drove through it in the car, as soon as one got out the air was bursting with lark song and there were plenty of birds moving about: hoopoe, southern grey shrike, kestrel, as well as calandra and thekla larks. Top species here are blackbellied and pintailed sandgrouse – both eluding us on this occasion – and little bustard, which flock together at this time of year and tend to move away from the steppe onto alfalfa fields. However – thanks to a pair of passing cyclists, who flushed them – we saw a pair of bustards spring up out of the grass and fly overhead.
Me out on the steppe... two little bustards winging by!
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