Milvus Milvus – Red Kite – Ψαλιδιάρης

These photos are the first ones, of a series which were taken during a very interesting trip at Central-Western Spain. More specifically we visited Sierra De Gredos & Extremadura & although the hot weather -with max temperatures sometimes > 40 degrees- was not suitable for birdwatching, some observations (especially raptors) were still impressive.
Red Kite (Milvus milvus – Ψαλιδιάρης) is not as common as in winter & as its relative more successful Black Kite – which can be observed anywhere, even over the cities -. Thus i was very happy for this close view of this individual at northern slopes of Sierra De Gredos, actually just at the edge of Navarredonda de Gredos.
Just in seconds, several Griffon vultures, a Common Buzzard, plus this Red Kite & a minute later a Booted Eagle, gathered over my head, the last ones in an impressively close distance, searching for or just found a prey-carrion.
27/7.

~ by Sterna hirundo on 17/08/2010.