Thursday 27 February 2014

LANNER FALCON AT CUATRO LUGARES. MAY 2013


 Lanner Falcon (Falco biarmicus). 2º year bird. Santiago del Campo-Monroy, Cáceres, 4th May 2013 (John Dreyer Andersen).

TRANSLATED BY MARTIN KELSEY
Extremadura is a region at the periphery of a country at the periphery of Europe. It is a place about which generally little is spoken of across the continent, apart from about birds. For example there is the Facebook group "Extremadura Birdwatching", created by Ib Helles Olesen, a Dane living in Copenhagen, giving information about birds in Extremadura and taking into account posts from this blog. Interesting records also appear. One example is a photograph of a Lanner Falcon (Falco biarmicus), a second-year immature, seen in the district of Cuatro Lugares, close to Monroy (Cáceres), on 4 May 2013 by another DaneJohn D. Andersen.

We had a
post in June 2013 about this species concerning a sighting near Trujillo which was of another individual (a subadult). In that post there is further information about the status of the species in Extremadura. The record described here from Monroy would be the fifth confirmed record in Extremadura, all of them in steppe areas (La Serena, Llanos de Cáceres-Trujillo, Cuatro Lugares), apart from one in Plasencia. The species has been recorded in January, May (2 records) and June (two records) and all pertain to immature birds.

We thank Ib Helles for his initiative in spreading the news and look forward to further collaboration in the future.