Birding

Fighting the bad weather

March 16, 2025 by Clive Finlayson 3 Comments

It’s been quite a week, with heavy rain and strong to gale force winds. I managed to get out in between the worst intervals and I never cease to be surprised at the way in which birds on migration seem to find gaps to get across. The big challenge here is crossing from North Africa to southern Europe and that involves crossing the sea. All the photos in this post were taken this week and they show the effort of birds crossing in bad weather conditions.

Black Kite

The main species moving this week, in the thousands, was the Black Kite (Milvus migrans). These birds are fearless and will cross even during rain showers, cannily keeping on the edge of the advancing front as the push north.

Black Kites pouring in yesterday. Europa Point lighthouse, Gibraltar, is in Europe. The mountains behind are North Africa
Black Kite struggling with the wind eddies off the sea cliff
Short-toed Snake Eagle arrives in the rain

Other raptors are no as adept and only cross when it really warms up, they can see clearings and the chances look good. Short-toed Snake Eagles (Circaetus gallicus) are the main ones following this strategy during the first half of March, all adults returning to breed, in some cases as far east as Italy. But they can get caught by the rain as they struggle over the sea. You can really see the challenges of migrating over water in this species, arriving with beaks open, panting, and some even with missing flight and tail feathers.

Short-toes Snake Eagle squeezes in, between the coast and an anchored ship
Short-toed Snake Eagle “welcomed” by local Yellow-legged Gulls

Storks are strong fliers and this week has seen the continuing passage of White (Ciconia ciconia ) and Black Storks (Ciconia nigra). It’s pleasing to see the latter crossing in large flocks, of between thirty and one hundred birds. In the seventies, Black Storks were much scarcer. In fact a seasonal total then can be easily reached in a day today.

Flock of Black Storks
Adult Northern Gannet patrols the sea cliffs

Waiting for these raptors and storks to come in along Gibraltar’s southern sea cliffs is never dull. This week we’ve been treated by spectacles of Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus) diving just offshore and giving us a chance to observe them in plumages of all ages.

First winter Northern Gannet spots a fish

The other treat for me this week has been Audouin’s Gulls (Icthyaetus audouinii), now returning to breeding sites in the Mediterranean. The adults, in particular, are in splendid plumage.

Audouin’s Gull

Yesterday, the weather improved but the wind blew from the north-west. This gave the soaring birds a head wind which meant that they were able to reach great altitudes as they crossed the sea. Not so good if you’re trying to photograph them, but wonderful to watch nonetheless. It was quite a treat, seeing the skies filled with raptors as they made the most of the first fully clear day in a week.

Layers of Black Kites over Gibraltar yesterday


Written by Clive Finlayson
Growing up in Gibraltar, it is impossible not to notice large birds of prey, in the thousands, overhead. That, and his father’s influence, got Clive hooked on birds from a very young age. His passion for birds took him eventually to the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology at Oxford University where he read for a DPhil, working with swifts and pallid swifts. Publishing papers, articles and books on birds aside, Clive is also a keen bird photographer. He started as a poor student with an old Zenit camera and a 400 mm lens; nowadays he works with a Nikon mirrorless system. Although his back garden is Gibraltar and the Strait of Gibraltar, Clive has an intimate knowledge of Iberian birds but his work also takes him much further afield, from Canada to Japan to Australia. He is Director of the Gibraltar National Museum. Clive's beat is "Avian Survivors", the title of one of his books in which he describes the birds of the Palaearctic as survivors that pulled through a number of ice ages to reach us today.