Albolote, Granada, Granada Province.

Special but damp birds.

Long-eared Owl (Búho Chico / Asio otus).

The weather is still fairly bad / good which ever way you look at heavy rainfall, the local minister for water will be well happy I suppose.

Long-eared Owl (Búho Chico / Asio otus).

I headed out to Embalse de Cubillas to have a look at what was there on my way to meet with Juan Pérez-Contreras at a private site near Albolote. I arrived at the Embalse to find it was full to bursting point and the run off channel was flowing very quickly. Birds were few and far between, I only picked up Eurasian Coot (Focha Común / Fulica atra), Great Cormorant (Cormorán Grande / Phalacrocorax carbo), Great Tit (Carbonero Común / Parus major) and Goldfinch (Jilguero / Carduelis carduelis). 

Long-eared Owl (Búho Chico / Asio otus).

I then made my way to the arranged meeting point where Juan and I meet a security guard who escorted us to an area of Pine and Eucalyptus trees on the area of private property. Here we were lucky enough to see thirteen of the wintering Long-eared Owls (Búho Chico / Asio otus) which return in late August and remain till March / April. Most of the birds were sat in tall Pines but a group of five were in a low Stone Pine (Pinus pinea). We also saw Long-tailed Tit (Mito / Aegithalos caudatus), Mistle Thrush (Zorzal Charlo / Turdus viscivorus), Common Chiffchaff (Mosquitero Común / Phylloscopus collybita) and Cetti's Warbler (Ruisenor Bastardo / Cettia cetti).