At last...............a summer's day! Blue sky, fluffy white clouds, no rain, marvellous. This was just a morning walk with John & Penny Hale my good friends from Casares.
We were looking for Spectacled Warbler a bird that John had not caught up with thus far, however, butterflies seemed to take up most of our time.
We walked across the open, rock-strewn plain and quickly found a family party of Iberian Grey Shrikes, they showed well for us.
We saw a Little Owl sitting up in the rocks and then both Crested Lark and a family party of Black-eared Wheatears before settling down to photograph a number of butterflies. We saw Rock Grayling, The Hermit, Sage Skipper and Dusky Meadow Brown.
ROCK GRAYLING
Other birds seen as we walked towards the 'heath' included Rock Bunting, Cirl Bunting, Linnet and Goldfinch, we also saw, very distantly, Black Wheatear, Red-billed Chough, Common Kestrel and Griffon Vulture.
We also found this dragonfly.
Red-viened Darter-female (Sympetrum fonscolombii)
Finally we arrived on the heath and spent an hour watching a family of Spectacled Warblers although we did not had great views of them we saw enough for John to be happy with. A few other species were noted; Dartford Warbler, Subalpine Warbler, Woodlark (singing) and Woodchat Shrike.
We left the track around 12:30 and drove back into Gaucin where we met Dawn and we all enjoyed a lovely lunch together on the terrace of nice bar/venta on the edge of town.