As I commented in my last two posts, each year my wife and I make a ministry/work trip to Spain and the Mediterranean region. Organizing these trips is a lot of work for me, and has the unfortunate effect of cutting into my 10,000 Birds blogging time. But once each year’s trip is over, in mid-November, I can enjoy having built up a slight backlog of Mexican birding stories, as well as experiences birding in some new areas in the Old World which I can discuss.
This year, the new places we visited were Rabat in Marruecos, Senlis and Chantilly in France, and Antequera and Barcelona in Spain. I already had national life lists for all three countries, but this trip added to each, with only a 10% increase for Spain, but up to 50% for the two in which I had birded less.
Barcelona was this trip’s furthest spot from anywhere I had previously visited. It is also a city which many birders might have occasion to visit on a non-birding trip, whether for business or tourism. So my experience as a newbie there might be helpful.
As is our custom, we stayed with friends, this time in an urban neighborhood north of the historic center of Barcelona. I did not have access to a car to take me to the best birding spots, all of which seem to be to the southwest of downtown, in the Llobregat River delta near the airport. Fortunately, Barcelona offers natural areas throughout its urban area. EBird showed my best option within walking distance as Santa Coloma de Gramenet on the Besos River, a twenty minute walk from where we were staying. I suspect that similar options would be available near any neighborhood of Barcelona. My recommendation would be that if you can’t make it to a marshland, find a river, of which there are several.
This was during the fourth week of October, and I must say that it was very strange to head out at 7:30 a.m. and find that I had gone too early. In Mexico, which eliminated daylight savings time last year, peak birding time starts by 7:00 a.m. at the latest, year-round. But in Barcelona, there wasn’t really enough light available until about 8:30. And it was cold! Of course, by late October all the summer species were gone, and most migratory passers-through, as well.
Still, many of the usual Spanish suspects showed up. There were plenty of Rock and Common Wood Pigeons, Mallards, Little Egrets, Eurasian Moorhens, and Yellow-legged and Black-headed Gulls. (There may have been other gulls as well, of course. I can barely ID New World gulls, much less those of the Old World!) European Robins and Eurasian Magpies? Of course. And it was no surprise to see Sardinian Warblers, Eurasian Blackcaps, Black Redstarts, and White and Grey Wagtails.
Sardinian Warbler
Grey Wagtail
Still, there were little reminders that I was closer to France than to southern Spain’s Andalucía region. House Sparrows were accompanied by European Tree Sparrows instead of Spanish Sparrows. The Starlings were European rather than Spotless.
Merlin’s audio ID function told me the calls I kept hearing came from Cetti’s Warblers, and I accepted the ID, since they have often been listed at this site. Still, I suspect that the many similar birds I saw were Common Chiffchaffs. Perhaps the several European writers on this page would help me out with the ID of this photo?
One introduced but established species was a lifer for me. Southern Spain hosts Common Waxbills from Africa. But I had to come to Barcelona to finally see one.
In the end, a pair of brief morning outings to this one site gave me 30 species for Barcelona. As well as a very enjoyable, if cold, time. I have only one complaint. Barcelona, like much of Europe, hosts a huge number of Monk Parakeets. Honestly, if I wanted to see this Argentinean species, I could have stayed in Mexico.
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