Rare Birds in Spain Blog

Spain has experienced a very good year for rarities in 2010. Within the amount of observations gathered in Rare Birds in Spain recent report pages, we've selected 22 of those, with The rarest of the rare: an overview of 2010 rare bird highlights in Spain in the website > And vote in the poll useful for this blog entry and the webpage in this blog right column! CANDIDATE 1 Branta hutchinsii at Badajoz, January 2010 Photo above:© Antonio Ceballos. 2.1.2010 CANDIDATE 2 Bucephala albeola at Cantabria, January - March 2010 Photo above:© Luis Eduardo Molina. 7.1.2010 CANDIDATE 3 Megaceryle alcyon at Murcia, relocated on January 2010 and present until March 2010 Photo above:© Kris de Rouck 17.1.2010 CANDIDATE 4 Falco rusticolus at Asturies, February 2010 Photo above:© Juan Sagardia. February 2010 CANDIDATE 5 Larus smithsonianus at Madrid on February - May 2010 Photo above:© Delfín González. 7.2.2010 CANDIDATE 6 Motacilla flava feldegg ...

© Juan Antonio Pulido On 3.12.2010 a 1w Flycatcher was was seen at Pedroñeras, Cuenca (Juan Antonio Pulido). Photos were sent to Rafa Torralba and from him to Rarebirdspain. The bird looked like a 1w because of moult of greater coverts. Characters pointing to Collared Flycatcher are the rather grey overall tone, the long primary projection, the rather pale collar, the white on the basis of primaries and the extent of white in the outermost tail feather. © Juan Antonio Pulido However, some authors think it may be a difficult bird and Sergi Sales has pointed towards a photo collage published in May 2008 Rarebirdspain page showing some variation in both Collared and Pied Flycatchers. © Álvaro Díaz 4.5.2008 The question is that the Cuenca bird, despite having long wings, has a rather small white patch in primaries, it looks greyer or no depending on the author (and computer?) and some inner primaries of the Cuenca bird may reflect a plumage aberration. Any opinions? In any case a Flycat...

By mid-late November 2010, both species of 'commoner' Phalaropes: Red-necked ( Phalaropus lobatus ) and Grey ( Phalaropus fulicarius ) have been recorded in coastal wetlands of Murcia, E Spain. While Red-necked is considered a national rarity because of the paucity of records and the still not well documented status of occurrence (albeit it's a non problematic species in terms of identification), Grey Phalarope it is not. This is because of its regular occurrence in the Atlantic but, and this is the interesting case here, it's very rare in Mediterranean Spain. Indeed, thes could be the 1st for Murcia. Hence, the opportunity of watching both of them in a single day it's something to be considered. Thanks to Richard Howard who regularly contributes to Rare Birds in Spain with sightings from the region, as well as other local birders do, we include here two photos and two videos depicting these nice waders. More Red-necked information in the website here . All in al...

The 25th official report of rare birds seen in Spain is due for publication in Ardeola journal volume 57(2) of 2010. It contains 28 colour photos of rarities sent by the authors to rarezas@seo.org to become part of the archive of accepted rarities records in Spain. Have you been to Spain? Did you see rarities? Drop us a message, thanks! The report abstract is enclosed below. SUMMARY.—Report on rare birds in Spain 2008. This is the 25th annual report of the Spanish rarities committee ( Comité de Rarezas de SEO/BirdLife ). Up to 294 new accepted records from 89 rare bird taxa are given (acceptance rate of 84%). Additions to the Spanish List were the first observation assigned to the species pair Zino’s/Fea’s petrel Pterodroma madeira/feae , the first Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis , Arctic Warbler Phylloscopus borealis and Kumlien's gull Larus glaucoides of the nearctic race kumlieni . It has also been a first record for Spain the observation of an Egyptian Plover Pluvianus aegypt...

Photo above:© Toni Alcocer 13.9.2010 An influx of Buff-breasted Sandpipers ( Tryngites subruficollis ) took place in Spain in September-October 2010. About 18 different birds were reported in September 2010 and 7 additional new individuals in October 2010. In comparison, De Juana (2006) gives only 28 accepted records up to 2004 in the whole of the country and 43 up to 2007 (Mainland and Balearics: 35 records/39 individuals; Canary Islands: 7 records/7 individuals; Dies et al 2009 Ardeola 56(2):309-344). Hence the 25 birds reported so far in Spain this Autumn 2010 is a notable number (40 reported in UK & Ireland in September as a comparison, Source: Birding World). Unlike the proportion of records shown in De Juana (2006) with a larger number of records in Galicia compared to E Spain and a lack of records from central Spain, the distribution of Autumn 2010 records seem to show a 'wave' moving N to South and crossing all over Spain, perhaps after having reached Europe furth...

Del 24-26.9.2010 se celebró la segunda edición de la Feria de las Aves del Estrecho , la Tarifa Bird Fair. Una de las conferencias que estuvieron programadas fue la que tuve ocasión de dar ante un numeroso (¡gracias!) público sobre aves raras del Estrecho y la provincia de Cádiz. El estrecho de Gibraltar es una zona increíble para el observador de aves. Es un cruce de caminos entre dos continentes y entre dos mares, con una posición estratégica que canaliza flujos tanto en sentido norte sur como oeste-este. Esa puerta de entrada a Europa convierte a la zona en un lugar con altísima diversidad de fauna y lo convierte en una área única para poder aclarar estatus de diferentes especies de la fauna europea como algunas de la lista ‘D’. Si una cuarta parte de la lista española de aves son rarezas (26.31% de las 513 especies de la lista española de 2005), está claro que el esclarecimiento de su patrón tiene en lugares como el Estrecho un lugar privilegiado para su observación y ...

Acaban de aparecer las recomendaciones taxonómicas de la AERC para 2010 efectuadas por el AERC-TAC (Taxonomic Advisory Committee) ¿Que es el AERC_TAC? Es el comité interno de la Asociación Europea de Comités de Rarezas y Listas Nacionales para la adopción de cambios sistemáticos y taxonómicos en Europa. Está reconocido por la mayoría de países europeos y a nivel oficial es un estamento científico de referencia. El TAC tiene cinco miembros: Taxonomy Sub-committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC-TSC, UK) Commission de l’Avifaune Française (CAF, France) Swedish Taxonomic Committee (STC, Sweden) Commissie Systematiek Nederlandse Avifauna (CSNA, Netherlands) German Taxonomic Committee (German TC, Germany). Tal y como se decidió hace años los cambios sistemáticos se fundamentan en las decisiones publicadas por o directamente enviadas al secretario del TAC por esos comités taxonómicos. El documento, preparado por Laurent R...