Easterlies and heaps of migrants!

Spring migration really took off for me on the 16th of April. My parents were visiting for the Easter holidays and we had plenty of spare time so we did a little bit of birding every day or two. The Easter birding started off really well with a very productive visit to Can Dimoni & Remolar Filipines. We had a really nice tally, consisting of:

20+ Common Redstart
25+ Pied Flycatcher
Lots of Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff
1 Wryneck
1 Hobby
2 Western Bonelli's Warbler
4 Gull-billed Tern
1 Pomarine Skua

Later that day, we added a single flyover Spoonbill at Cal Tet, to our tally

On the 18th of April, a big easterly system hit the Catalan coast and it was the beginnings of some incredible Spring birding. I knew it would probably produced some good birds, but I had no idea of what was to come. The winds were really intense and it was something I had never experienced in Catalunya before. I was genuinely surprised, and it actually felt more like the weather I was used to back in Ireland. That day I visited Remolar to show my mother around, and we were nearly blown away by the wind. We had excellent views of two young Wild Boar, and enjoyed good views of 2 Slender-billed Gulls (scarce in the delta) and 3 Spoonbills (also scarce migrants)

 

The next day (19th) we paid a quick visit to Cal Tet, and I was really excited to find 2 Wood Warblers which showed really well in the canopy of a line of White Poplar. These were some of the closest views I'd had of the species and I didn't expect to see them in the delta like this. Little did I know what was to occur with this species the following days!

 

With the way the winds were, and the following day (20th) being my birthday, we decided to go birding for the first half of the day to see if the easterlies had produced much. We stopped off at Can Dimoni first thing, and realised there were lots of migrants. Decent numbers of both Pied & Spotted Flycatchers, Common Redstarts, a single Tree Pipit and to our amazement 15-20 Wood Warblers! It was then that I realised that the previous 2 were the start of something much bigger. At Remolar we had another 10-15 Wood Warbler, including one exhausted bird at our feet.

Over the next couple of days there was an unprecedented arrival of Collared Fycatcher all along the Catalan coast. In the end there were over 100 birds discovered, which is incredible when you consider that there are normally on a few records a year. Despite intensive searching I didn't find one myself but I did manage to go and see one at Remolar, where I saw three species of flycatcher lined up on the same fence-line! I did manage to find an Icterine Warbler and Can Dimoni though, so that was nice. To be honest, it has been non-stop here with migrants and I'm just catching up now! Other highlights include finding an Ortolan Bunting, and a Roller at Can Dimoni! 

More to follow!