4th of January: I'd Rather Photograph A Hoopoe Than Seeing A Lynx!

We left to La Lancha quite early in the morning, not knowing we would miss a Lynx in one minute.. On our way to La Lancha we were stopped by several Red Deer, showing well next to the road:

Nice male.

And a bit further down the road we were rewarded with a close Hoopoe, warming up in the cold!

The cold Hoopoe.

A few minutes later we arrived at the Lynx spot, to find out we had missed a Lynx in one minute... What we saw: running Lynx-watchers, Lynx-watchers searching through their telescope etc.. It feels pretty bad to miss a Lynx but ofcourse you can always come up with excuses why you've missed it. To look on the bright side: we photographed a nice male Red Deer and a Hoopoe!

Searching for Lynxes, even the other family members participated as you can see!

Dissappearing fog on a sunny morning.

At the Lynx-spot we had good views of a Dartford Warbler and we had a flyover Fieldfare. Later in the morning the Vultures became active again. Both Black and Griffon were seen. In addition, when we were already on our way back I discovered a displaying eagle: Spanish Imperial Eagle. It was showing perfectly well through the telescope and not much later is was joined by a second bird. We heard it calling as well!

A Sparrowhawk passed by near Los Pinos.

In the afternoon we headed to the Santuario de La Virgen de la Cabeza. A monastry (and village) situated on the highest hill in the Sierra. From there you have an amazing view over the Sierra. The Sierra Nevada is even visible. On our way to there we had a good view of our first Golden Eagle of the trip. What are these birds majestic! Flying around with their wings up, just wonderful! At the monastry I started scanning the sky with the telescope resulting in one Spanish Imperial Eagle, two Golden Eagles of which one was displaying; it was diving down on high speed, folding together its wing, before heading up again. This specatcle durated a couple of minutes. I always get so excited when seeing eagles, they're just so cool! Further raptors included a Peregrine and a juvenile Bonelli's Eagle. When we went back to our appartment it was already dark. This had been our last day here. The next day we would leave to Sevilla, our last destination of the Spain-trip.