Quarry Hide (afternoon session) - 29.1.20
The morning session now over at the Goshawk hide we head south to an area close to the city of Liria north west of Valencia for an afternoon session in the passerine "Quarry Hide" but first it's a quick stop at the nearby Lidl Superstore to stock up on some food.
Twenty minuets later we are in the "Quarry Hide"located on the edge in of the city sprawl in an area that looks like some small scale quarrying has taken place in the past, the "permanent" hide being far more luxurious than previous hides sporting some nice swivel chairs and even electric fans ! The birds are ever present, the ones you want see but never managing to get near, but I'm more interested for the next few minuets in devouring my purchases from Lidl and weighing up the shot possibilities.
All the species I was expecting are present but there's is a couple of specialties I'm on the look out for missed earlier in the week, Blue Rock Thrush and Black Wheatear, but it's not long before they turn up. The Blue Rock Thrush makes an appearance in some great light, the blue colour ever changing as the sun dips in and out from behind the cloud, the background for the shot in fact most of the shots are from using the 500 wide open making some loverly bokeh with the pine trees in the distance, almost a green screen !
And that's it my four days in the sun is up, some great birds at some incredibly close distances, a trip I would highly recommend. Special thanks must go to Turia Hides and especially Yanina Maggiotto who has been my guide for the four day trip and has amazed me with her energy turning up at some incredible early hours to make the trip a success..thanks again.
See you all at the end of the year.
Black Redstart - male
Black Redstarts are probably one of the most common birds to be found in Spain during the winter literally they are everywhere around the urbanisations, the drab females seemingly more common than the photogenic males. I was hoping to get images of the male bird on the trip and this one didn't disappoint.
Iberian Grey Shrike
I've all ways had mixed success shooting shrikes especially in the UK my hit rate is pretty much zero, in Spain on the other hand I can get quite close as long as I stay in the mobile hide (car) but on this trip I'm getting some of the closesd encounters to date, here's some images of the hundreds taken over a couple of hours.
Blue Rock Thrush
I'd seen Blue Rock Thrush several time in the week not really getting a decent image due to the harsh light or staying partly hidden but this bird gave some shots with a decent clean background, but I had to be quick as it only stayed maybe around five seconds on every visit.
Kestrel....male & female
Black Wheatear
White Wagtail
Serin
