4 April 2011
This is my last ‘live’ posting from Spain for a few weeks as in a couple of days I will be flying out to spend some time with my family in the UK. Spring has always been my favourite season and I have already had some of the best of it in Spain, so I’m really looking forward to being a little further north where it happens a little later. I consider myself very fortunate that I will have been able to experience some of the best of two springs this year and then be back in Spain for the latter end of the season there in early May.
One last lucky bird-spot this morning was this gorgeous male Pied Flycatcher; he would be a recently returned migrant and had stopped in the garden for a while to have a drink and to take a look around for food. I have been lucky to have had Pied Flycatchers dropping in whilst on passage every year so far, but in the past each spring it has been a female that stayed around for a few days with perhaps a few glimpses of a male, then again in the autumn often just a female.
Pied Flycatcher - Ficedula hypoleuca
20/9/06-Pied Flycatcher (f)
In May 2008 a male and a female stayed around locally for a week or so, visiting the garden to bathe and to hunt
Pied Flycatcher female taking a bath
nightingale trails 