Another Sunshine Holiday

Another sunshine Holiday with the Mrs last week this time to Salou on the Costa Daurada, Spain, very little around the resort just the usual Pigeons and Doves, House Sparrows with the occasional Serins, Blackbirds, Great Tits and Monk Parakeets, Spotless Starlings were very much in evidence though as were Magpies which I thought unusual, I have generally only see one or two if that around the Med on previous Holidays, nothing much doing on the sea neither just a handful of Yellow Legged Gulls and Sandwich Terns, most noteworthy though was a steady passage of Hirundines throughout the week. I had half a day out birding as usual and had a look around some scrub adjacent to the Port Aventura Golf Course, again pretty quiet birdwise but I added Buzzard, Kestrel, Hoopoe, Redstart, Sardinian Warbler and Goldfinch to the list, highlight of the afternoon being an impressive flock of 45-50 Alpine Swifts moving through, a good few Butterflies around as well including some smart Swallowtails, Long Tailed Blues and Clouded Yellows plus a Fritillary Sp which unfortunately just kept on going also a few Red Veined and Yellow Winged Darters about, on the subject of Dragonflies an interesting one was seen when we paid a visit to Tarragona , a colonizer from North Africa an Orange-winged Dropwing was by an ornamental pool there.

Habitat shot with Port Aventura in the background

quite a few Swallowtails bombing around

and Long Tailed Blues

Red Veined Darters

the Yellow Winged proved camera shy then I thought I'd bagged one

but it turned out to be a rather Yellow (Red) Veined Darter

Orange-winged Dropwing in Tarragona

Sandwich Tern on a bouy