Sunday, December 25, 2011

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas to everyone, enjoying some fabulous weather here in Spain and a few good birds.

A walk along Oliva Beach yesterday produced plenty of Balearic Shearwaters, Audouin's & Yellow-legged Gulls, Sandwich Terns, Sanderling and Kentish Plovers. Then a stroll up to the 'old castle' we saw several Dartford & Sardinian Warbler, Blackcaps, Chiffchaffs, a couple of Crossbills, Sparrowhawk, Short-toed Treecreeper, Serins, Chaffinches, Stonechat and Black Redstarts.
The warm weather brought out a few butterflies with Wall Brown, Red Admiral, Clouded Yellow and Small White all on the wing.
Not bad just minutes from the house!!!
Male Black Redstart

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Southern Poland - 2011

Below is a short report on this years Souther Poland short break in late August by our excellent Polish guide - Felix Felger.

See next year's April - Woodpecker & Owl Festival short break HERE

"I have finished another succesful trip and the lovely British couple were very happy.
We had very good views of Pygmy Owl, but sadly Ural Owl we only heard a few times. There were many fantastic sightings of Lesser Spotted Eagle, a superb Goshawk eating a Woodpigeon right next to the vehicle. We also saw Honey Buzzards, Montagu's Harrier, White backed & Black Woodpeckers, a few Nutcrackers, Woodcock, Crested, Marsh, Willow & Northern Long-tailed Tits. These 'white-headed' gems are fantastic. There were Alpine Accentors close to us, down toa couple of meters (look at the photo). At the Zagor Fishponds we found Temincks Stint, Penduline Tit, Whiskered Terns feeding chicks, Great Bittern and many others.

We did quite well with the mammals, where we found very fresh Brown Bear tracks on a Beaver dam!, Chamoix from the cable car and very close while resting on the rocks, Red Deer and Red Squirrel.
However the major highlight of the tour was by no doubt the Gray Wolf seen very close to the bus during the day!!! This was same meadow where we saw the Brown Bear on last year's wildlife short break!

There were many butterflies such as Camberwell Beauty and Map Butterfly plus dragonflies such as Small Pincertail and Sombre Goldenring.

Alpine Accentor

Sombre Goldenring

Monday, December 19, 2011

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Hi All
Here at JSW we thought we needed a portal for letting our valued friends and guests know what has been happening recently with the business. This will include overviews and images from recent holidays and short breaks, offers and discounts, competitions, new ventures, feedback, etc.
Please feel free to contribute to this page by sending your images and comments from any of the tours you may have taken with us. It would be great to relive some of those memories.
Take care and hope you have a fabulous festive season, with lots of opportunities to spend time observing nature.

Best wishes Julian and Jane

India - Tigers & Taj Mahal
Feb 23rd - March 5th 2012

December - Iberian Lynx Trip

Here's a few images from my latest 'Iberian Lynx in Andalucia' at the beginning of December. It was a very successful trip with sightings on two separate days including one for more than 30 minutes.

See the trip report - HERE
Iberian Lynx

Andujar Sunset

Andujar Dawn

Spanish Ibex