Moving to the plains of Belchite
Internet access will not be easy for the next couple of days but hopefully we can still provide brief updates of our progress. With the guys in Coto de Donana, we succeeded in adding White-headed Duck to our year list at Laguna de Merida, about 50 birds on show, and also Ferruginous Duck, a new bird for Spain. Sadly we failed to find Marbled Duck despite an extensive search by the Rio Guadalquivir. Here we said goodbye to Marc, Aled, Rob and Mike as they headed for Malaga Airport, and we struck north to try again for that elusive Bonelli´s Eagle. A fast hard drive up the motorway had us at the site with an hour´s daylight left, and luckily a Bonelli´s was sitting out and showing on the cliff. Phew, what a relief to get this on our year list. On again north to Trujillo where we spent the night before heading out in the morning back to San Clemente to look for our other bogey bird, Cirl Bunting. Bumping into Martin Kelsey of El Recuerdo doing his recyling duties in the village, just behind his house we found a male Cirl Bunting and also jammed in on a roosting European Scops Owl, of which we enjoyed fantastic views in the sunshine. We called in at Martin and Claudia´s for a welcome cup of tea and to pass on the gen on the Scops. Then once again we blasted north on the motorway (thank you BMW!) past Madrid. We are now at Belchite south east of Zaragoza, where we lucked upon a little hotel at Lecera called Rincon del Cierzo, perfect location ready for a pre-dawn assault on the Dupont´s Lark tomorrow. Bird species total: 1906Posted 8pm Lecera, Spain 5th April