Tarifa April 22 - Part 2: Sound recording and non-raptors

July 02, 2022

Tarifa April 22 - Part 2: Sound recording and non-raptors

Visiting Southern Spain always comes with plenty of highlights. I had a go at trying to sound record some species, with varying success (Tarifa is a very windy place!). Here are some of the better ones...

Iberian Chiffchaff song (view fullscreen) - the sonogram shows how the song is broken into 3 parts: "chiff chiff chiff", "weet weet", followed by a 'wittery' bit. I did manage a brief view of this bird and it showed some nice plumage features as well - most notably the supercilium was rather striking yellow in front of the eye but not behind, and the bird was a different shade of green to typical Common Chiffchaffs.

Odd Common Chiffchaff song for comparison (recorded from my bedroom window in York). This bird has some interesting 'hiccups' in its song but the sonogram is still clearly different from the 3 part structure of the Iberian Chiffchaff above.

Zitting Cisticola was a 'song tick' for me. Before I'd heard this, I never actually put two and two together to realise that their song is essentially just a repetitive "zitting" noise. They do a nice bouncy song flight to go with it.

Zitting Cisticola song sonogram. Corn Bunting song in background also.

The valleys just to the east of Tarifa were pretty much saturated with Nightingales.