The Aiguamolls de l’Emporda

Hola from Espana! We are away for a three week trip in Mary Moho, starting off at our favourite bird reserve just south of Roses and close to the French border. It’s not the best time of year for birding, having missed the migration season and it seems, being before all the overwintering ducks come in, but we still enjoyed two days full of birds, butterflies and dragonflies! 

Ok, I’m not going to type lots as I’m on my iPad, so here are some photos, some cropped but none edited apart from a couple with some instant filters. Much easier than faffing around in Lightroom! 😂😂😂

Flamingos above and Little Grebe below.

This creature took some Googling as I didn’t bring an insect book (only my butterfly book), but I got there in the end. Believe it or not, it’s a grasshopper! It’s a Common Cone-headed Grasshopper, though I’m not sure how common it is! I know it’s head makes no sense, but it’s mouthparts are well below the eyes - look just above the first leg and you will see it, then the head shape starts looking more like a grasshopper, rather than an alien!

There were a lot of yellow flowers (don’t know name of plant) which was attracting a lot of butterflies. Clouded Yellows were one of them.

This butterfly was confusing me as it looked something like a Marbled White whilst flying, yet more like one of the Cabbage Whites with its wings open. My butterfly book came to the rescue, and I am pretty sure it is a Bath White, which is a lifer for me!

(By the way, I am not posting the Latin names this time as it’s just an additional hassle on my iPad.)

The red dragonfly, I think, is a Red-veined Darter, yet the one above was flying everywhere with it (by it, I mean loads of them). They have the same pterostigma markings, yet the one above is nothing like a female Red-veined (or any other red darter which I googled), so I have no idea what is is!

I don’t know the species, no time for googling frogs as well as insects! 😄

It had rained a lot recently here after a very hot dry summer, so water had been available to pump into the lagoon, which sometimes dries out in summer, and is used for animal grazing.

An Egyptian Goose, with female behind it, given a filter as it was in heavy shade.

A turtle of some sort, I’ll be IDing when I get home!

This is a Camargue horse, which graze all over wetland areas like this, as they are perfectly at home in wet meadows.

Phew, I think that’s enough, on an iPad this blogging is a real pain in the rear! Today we have arrived in Peniscola, in the top end of the province of Valencia. It is very wet here and has rained since we arrived! The forecast is due to change and be about 28c though, so looking forward to that. I’ll be back in a few more days when I have some more to share, though I will have to use K’s laptop to reply to comments.