Of Delta Birds, Bulls and Clouds..

As it was the last day of the year I thought I’d go down to the Ebro Delta to see if I could add any last minute birds to my list. It was a lovely still day here in Mora d’Ebre but on the Delta it was blowing a gale! It wasn’t cold just incredibly windy – so much so that I could barely hold the binoculars steady! Needless to say it was a bit naff for birdwatching because most of the birds were either taking cover deep in the scrub or huddled in reeds at the side of the lagoons.  Nevertheless, I spent several hours tootling around and the wind did drop a little after a couple of hours.  In the end as well as birdwatching I was watching the clouds too -like this spaceship that hovered over the Delta for most of the afternoon:

Spaceship over the Ebro Delta. (lenticular cloud)

Nearly all the birds I saw were the common Delta birds that were already on the 2011 list. But this was a nice little trio – a lapwing, a glossy ibis and a cattle egret:

Trio of birds: Lapwing, Glossy Ibis and Cattle Egret

And the flamingoes were braving the wind:

Flamingoes, Ebro Delta

And then some bulls wanted to cross the road. Well I wasn’t about to argue…!

Ebro Delta Bulls

And finally I got my first tick of the day and the last tick of the year.  A Spotted Redshank:

Spotted Redshank

And then on the way home I had a Red Dragon:

Red Dragon Cloud