Iberian Lynx and friends :)

Hey folks, we're back from six days in southern Spain. I must say a huge THANK YOU to Shane, for persuading his neighbour to let us leave our car on her drive so we could get to Gatwick airport easily on Saturday morning, and then for jumpstarting the car when we got back this afternoon and found it had a flat battery. It turned out that some idiot (me) had left the passenger-side reading light on for a week - D'OH!

Our holiday was mostly spent exploring the Sierra de Andujar natural park, near Cordoba. We went primarily to look for Iberian Lynx, the world's most endangered feline. There are about 200 of them in Andalucia and another 50 or so in Donana, and that's it, though these numbers represent a considerable improvement from 10 years ago.

We arrived at what we were assured was the best spot, among the hills at La Lancha, on Monday morning and began to scan the slopes. From the elevated road you can see miles and miles across a wide, complex valley, full of smaller hills and valleys, and scattered with lynx-coloured bushes and lynx-like speckled rocks. I took a break from scanning the vista and saw this beauty coolly and silently making her way across the road, just five metres away from me. I was so astounded that I almost forgot to take any photos before it was too late.

She slipped through the fence and slipped away among the bushes on the hillside. A few minutes later Mr aiki spotted a second lynx, this time a half-grown cub, on the slopes close to where the first one had vanished.

We were the only people to see these two lynxes - there had been a Spanish man there but he'd gone off walking down the road. When he got back he found a third lynx, this one much more distant. I couldn't get onto it and only got a glimpse of its bobtail before it vanished behind the rocks, but Mr aiki did a bit better.

After three lynxes in quick succession, we were thinking this was easy. As it turned out, we saw no more for the rest of the week, although to be fair we didn't try as hard as we might have done, but spent some time looking at birds instead :) Spain is rather quiet for birdlife in winter but we found a few goodies. Some of the following are very much record shots!

Griffon Vultures - lots of these.

Black Vulture - these too are quite common.

Other raptors we saw included Sparrowhawk, Marsh Harrier, Spanish Imperial Eagle and this very distant subadult Bonelli's Eagle.

Azure-winged Magpie. Very common, absolutely beautiful, and complete gits to photograph!

Hoopoe - just for Becca :) Common and easy to see, but (like most of the birds we encountered in fact) flighty and unapproachable.

Southern Grey Shrike. We saw a few of these, and were lucky enough to hear one singing - it had a remarkable repertoire :)

Crag Martin. These non-migrating hirundines came over La Lancha in little flurries at about 4pm both days we were there in the afternoon.

Sardinian Warbler is pretty common - this is a female.

Woodlark - one of a sizeable flock we met when we decided to venture down the roughest of rough tracks through gorgeous countryside.

A Hawfinch up a tree. Not a great view but better than most of the ones I've had in the UK!

Long-tailed Tit - in southern Spain the subspecies present is the dark ibericus.

A Robin. Just like the Robins back home, it was a right poser :)

We saw some nice mammals besides the lynxes. These crazy characters are Mouflon, a species of wild sheep.

Red Deer are very common in the park and surrounding countryside.

Our hosts at the Villa Matilde guesthouse had a few animals around the place too - about 12 gorgeous cats, and two sweet female dogs who we nicknamed Bigdog and Littledog. Here is Bigdog...

... and here's Littledog :)

I'll end this epic post with a couple of landscapes and a sunsetty sky :)