Birding

January in Gibraltar

January 19, 2025 by Clive Finlayson No Comments

The days are getting noticeably longer now. The sun sets after 630pm and the Upper Rock Nature Reserve is looking lush and green, thanks to the autumn rains. The Paper-white Narcissi, which were in full flower before Christmas, are gone. Clematis, another season starter, is now showing it’s “old man’s beards” everywhere as it prepares to disperse its seeds. The almonds are blossoming and honeysuckle and lavender are in flower.
It’s a great time to wander up here in search of birds, always now with the hope and expectation of seeing a new arrival. It could be a Great Spotted Cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) or perhaps a Hoopoe (Upupa epops). Some Hoopoes stay in the Iberian Peninsula all winter but not here in Gibraltar, which means that any spotted are migrants.

Black Redstart

The winter visitors are still here, though getting ready to go in a few weeks’ time. Black Redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros) still feature prominently among these, perching boldly on rocks, posts or fences. Chiffchaffs (Phylloscopus collybita) and Robins (Erithacus rubecula) are also starting to fatten up for the journey north.

Chiffchaff
Sardinian Warbler, male

One of my favourite birds, a resident, is now in splendid plumage and starting to set up breeding territories. The chatter of the Sardinian Warbler (Curruca melanocephala) is as much a marker of this time of the year as any migrant or winter visitor. These warblers inhabit the dense wild olive maquis. As spring progresses, and the days get longer, the chatter will become a string of chatters, which we call song. For them, it’s a status symbol – this is my territory so keep away! As Sardinian Warbler breeding affairs intensify, the song is not just delivered from inside a bush. The male flies vertically into the air above its song perch and delivers its aria in mid-air.

Sardinian Warbler, male chattering
Sardinian Warbler, female

Come March, and it isn’t just fellow Sardinian rival males that have to be contended with. Living in a migratory hot spot presents its difficulties if you are a Sardinian Warbler. Suddenly, out of nowhere, strange intruders may descend into your territory. Where did they come from? Time now has to be spent chasing off Western Subalpine Warblers (Curruca iberiae), Spectacled Warblers (Curruca conspicillata), Common Whitethroats (Curruca communis), strangers with even longer tails than you (Dartford Warbler, Curruca undata), and veritable giants (Western Orphean Warbler, Curruca hortensis).

Western Subalpine Warbler
Spectacled Warbler
Common Whitethroat
Dartford Warbler
Western Orphean Warbler

But all this is over a month away. For now, the Sardinian Warblers chatter among the lavenders and brooms, busily catching aphids and small beetles from the foliage, listening out for their partners and ready to chase off intruders.

Sardinian Warbler, male


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.