Mid-April 1996 saw the 15th anniversary of Birdquest and, as with ten years earlier in Norfolk, saw a reunion on offer with a four day jaunt to Extramadura. My notes for this were particularly poor (too much cerveza!!) not helped with losing some of the nineties which were in loose leaf binders; seemed a better alternative than hard backed notebooks at the time but sadly not as secure. I guess those missing notes probably disappeared with a house move!!
Anyway, being a reunion saw a large group of us, in excess of 40 if I remember rightly. We covered all the usual sites within driving distance of Caceres, namely Monfrague, Trujillo and nearby plains.
It was interesting to sit in a bar with beer and tapas watching Spaniards celebrating St George' Day; at this time I was ignorant of the relationship between Caceres and its patron saint St George going back to the 13th century and predating his adoption by us Brits by a century or so.
The first morning's outing saw us milling around the hotel's reception area waiting for the off. Time dragged and I decided to pop back to my room as I'd forgotten my hat. In the time it took to return forty odd people had vanished into thin air leaving me wondering where I could get a hire car!! Luckily the head count took place not too far from the hotel and they realised they were one down!!
Highlight was splitting into two groups, one for Eagle Owl and the other, my choice, for Red-necked Nightjar. Hopes weren't too high but luckily one bird came in and gave great torchlight views after some 'audible encouragement'.
Calls and songs here
Bird highlights of a total of 105 species (in bird/days) were:-
Black Stork 9
Great Bustard 41
Little Bustard 30
Black-bellied Sandgrouse 17
Pin-tailed Sandgrouse 10
Black Vulture 16
Griffon Vulture 100
Black-winged Kite 2
Bonelli's Eagle 1
Golden Eagle 1
Spanish Imperial Eagle 3
Montagu's Harrier 30
Goshawk 1
Iberian Magpie 30
Lesser Kestrel 300
Great Spotted Cuckoo 10
Southern Grey Shrike 1 now Iberian Grey Shrike
Red-necked Nightjar 1
Calandra Lark 140
Short-toed Lark 22
Thekla Lark 1 ( I think once we identified this one we gave up on Crested/Thekla!!)
Western Orphean Warbler 1
