I’ve just got back from a trip to southern Spain where I’ve had a few days photographing golden eagles in Murcia, high in the Sierra Espuna. Two 12 hour days in the hide resulted in around 2hrs golden eagle photography over 4 visits from two birds. On the day we arrived in Murcia, we headed into the mountains to try and photograph the Barbary sheep which were introduced to the national park in the 70s. Barbary sheep are native to Morocco and are Africa’s only wild sheep but they are doing well in the park in Spain. We managed a few reasonable shots of the sheep before retiring for the night from a long day of travelling.

On the first day in the eagle hide, a male bird arrived at the bait around 12 noon and then turned up again in glorious evening light, while on the second day, a female visited once in the morning then again mid-afternoon. While waiting for the eagles, there was the odd chance of doing alpine ring ouxel and black redstart, but generally it’s a long waiting game. The eagle bait was a dead wild boar which I felt wasn’t quite right for the set-up, especially being so high up in the mountains, so we asked our Spannish hosts for a rabbit which I felt would be more natural. They obliged with a rabbit which we fastened to an old log and when the female eagle arrived, she landed directly onto the rabbit – for about 30 seconds.  After that she dropped onto the boar and fed there for the duration of her stay! Here are some of the eagle images and a short slideshow

After two days in the eagle hide, we had a short session with common kestrel before heading to the salt pans on the coast to look for waders and migrants. There wasn’t a great deal about but we did manage some nice shots of black-winged stilt and ruff and notched up Sardinian warbler for the trip list. All in all a productive trip and here are a few more images to finish with