Spotted Eagle Mystery Tour

With it set to be bright and warm we spent the day skirting the perimeter of El Hondo, in the hope of establishing exactly how many Greater Spotted Eagles were wintering on site. The answer to this question is that we are still unsure!! However we can confirm that there are a minimum of 4! We had numerous views of Tonn the Estonian radio tagged 3rd year bird as well as the 1st/2nd year bird with a ring on the right leg. We also had views later in the day of a second more "spotted" 1st year bird (can not confirm if this bird is ringed) and the other sub-adult which looks very similar to Tonn.

Greater Spotted Eagle

During the Eagle quest we saw a number of other raptors including; Peregrine Falcon (1), Marsh Harrier (12+), Booted Eagle (5+) and Kestrel (10). There seems to be more water around today and of particular interest is an area near the visitor centre which is currently being flooded. Within an hour of water being introduced this area had attracted 2 Great White Egret (below), 16 Little Egret, 4 Cattle Egret and 11 Water Pipit! Also recorded of note during the day were the following species - Iberian Grey Shrike (7, below), Red-crested Pochard (9), Whinchat (8) and similar numbers of wildfowl and waders as our last visit (see previous post).

Great White Egret
Marsh Harrier

Iberian Grey Shrike

Sardinian Warbler

I finally managed to photograph the male Sardinian Warbler that has taken up residence in our garden recently, hopefully even better images of this little cracker will follow shortly.