The Two Amigos plus Two go on a Twitch!

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Black Shouldered Kite by Mark Etheridge©
Black Shouldered Kite by Mark Etheridge©

We don’t usually go in for ‘twitching’ but sometimes, when I hear a certain bird is in the area, I just have to go and look for it! On this occasion the bird in question was a Black Shouldered Kite, a lovely little raptor which I haven’t seen for a couple of years. Yesterday Barry sent an email telling me about the bird with information about where it might be found, so today we set off from Gran Alacant on our mission. We arrived at the location where the bird was yesterday and scanned all the pylons, initially finding a Southern Grey Shrike and two Kestrels. On the way there we had also seen Marsh Harriers, Booted Eagles and large flocks of Cattle Egrets. We had been hanging around on top of the little bridge for about 15 minutes when Dave saw a bird fly in and called out “is that it?” John had a quick look in the scope and confirmed it was a Black Shouldered Kite! We all had a look at the bird through the scope which gave us a great view of this distinctive raptor. We had a quick look around the vistabella area but nothing was showing so we returned to Santa Pola for a nice lunch on the sea front. A very good Day!

Black Shouldered Kite by Mark Etheridge©
Black Shouldered Kite

Mark Etheridge followed Barry’s directions to the site this week and has kindly allowed me to use two of his photos which are a lot better than mine!