28/12/2021 Madrid: Wetland, cliff, and the museum
We already got all the essential target birds for Madrid on the 27th, so the next two days became relaxing. For the 28th, we spent the morning birding, and for the afternoon, we visited the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid.
On that day, we considered trying for another narrow-distributed bird, Black Wheatear, which we missed in all the previous sites. In the morning, we visited a wetland in Laguna, “El Picón de los Conejos.” Tracks separated several small lakes. We had a good collection of wetland birds there, including Northern Shovelers, Common Pochards, and Tufted Ducks. We even got a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in a mixed feeding flock with tits, chaffinches, and serins. However, though we looked carefully for all possible habitats, there was no Black Wheatear anywhere.
We then visited a nearby place, the north side of a lake called Laguna del Campillo, where some of our friends saw those birds three years ago. The place was just adjacent to the city. There was a road just between continuous cliffs and the lake. We followed the streets and scanned over the bushes in the cliffs. There were a lot of White Storks flying around, as some Larus gulls, I assumed to be Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Red Kites.
Scanning the bushes to the cliffs, we got some rabbits. After that, Sardinian Warbler, Black Redstart, and even Blue Rock-Thrush came individually, yet they did not look so exciting. I became nervous because we had another plan for the afternoon, and we did not have sufficient time here. Suddenly, I saw a small black bird with a white tail. “That must be a Black Wheatear!” I thought. As I got approached, it still stayed there. I appreciated it for its patience. Finally, we had a lovely view of this Black Wheatear. I had not seen any wheatear with such an extensive region of black plumage before, so it looked exciting. I didn’t know why that pigmentation was like that since black is not a good camouflage on the cliff. It might be suitable for radiation protection or resistance to abrasion in sticky bushes. Many Aythya diving ducks were in the lake, yet we didn’t have time to go through them carefully.
We spent the whole afternoon at the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid. The museum was fantastic, and one afternoon would not be enough for me. We only finished one-half of the exhibitions and had no time left for the other half, which was about paleontology. The museum has a beautiful collection of birds and other animals from around the world, and it is worth at least a whole-day visit. We had no luck with Little Bustard during that trip, yet we had a good view of the bird taxidermy in the museum.
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