Birding in Spain

At the back end of February we went to Spain for a few days with some friends. We stayed in San Lorenzo de el Escorial, not far from Madrid, and I took every opportunity I could to have a wander around the lovely town and surrounding countryside to see what I could see. 

Most of the birds I encountered were ones I see at home — Great Tits, Magpies, Chaffinches, the ubiquitous Feral Pigeons and a fair few House Sparrows in the town itself. 

Buzzards and Red Kites were seen overhead; so far, so Cotswolds but there were some continental specialities to be found. In the town itself I encountered a Serin in a tree; a rarity in Britain but a resident species in Spain. Have I ever seen one before? I’m not sure. In the square by the monastery were lots of White Wagtails — very similar to our Pied Wagtails which are in fact a subspecies which predominates in Britain and Ireland!

For me, though, the highlight was a flock of… well, the were lovely-looking birds with black caps and light blue wings and tails, but what are they exactly?

My ever-reliable copy of the Collins Bird Guide (second edition), which I always take with me on trips to Europe, says that these beautiful and evidently highly sociable birds are Azure-Winged Magpies, which breed only on the Iberian Peninsular (ie. Spain and Portugal) and, err, in the Far East. Odd? Yes. However, recent research into bird genetics has shown that the ones in Spain and Portugal are in fact a different species that just happens to look exactly the same as the Oriental ones. So the ones I saw were in fact Iberian Magpies. A lifer for me — and definitely the ornithological highlight of my trip to Spain!