Oliva Rama Tours and Holidays

• Being based on the east coast of Spain I run half & full day tours, plus a popular 'short break' birdwatching around the Valencia, Alicante, & Albacete Regions. In addition to the locally run birdwatching tours we also have all-inclusive birdwatching holidays to other areas of Spain including Andalusia, Castilla la Mancha & Extremadura, Pyrenees & N/E Spain, and the Picos de Europa. Our WP tour programme is currently limited to Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia, Southern Morocco and Scotland, but we have plans to expand to Bulgaria, Poland and the Azores.

Picos de Europa, Santander, Ciudad Real Area, Madrid June 27 - July 17, 2009

• It was a nice walk back; I saw two more Wallcreepers on the same cliffs where I'd seen one after lunch. A subadult Short-toed Eagle soared high overhead, and we saw one more Chamois just a kilometer or so away from the cable car station....Andy Reeve reports.

Picos de Europa 15th-19th May 2008 (94kB.pdf file)...Tony Moverley reports

Fuentes de Nava, Palencia, Spain 4 -12th September 2006

• This report gives details of the birds seen and the sites visited during a eight day visit to Fuentes de Nava, near Palencia in Castilla y Leon, northern Spain. I was a volunteer with the Foundacion Global Nature...Bob Swann reports

Picos de Europa - Western Pyrenees - Las Bardenas 17-24th May 2006

• On top of the mountain it was blowing a gale and very cold. Large patches of snow were everywhere. The first birds we saw were a couple of Northern Wheatears and a Water Pipit. Red-billed Choughs were dancing in the wind and there were also a small flock of Alpine Choughs moving around. A small flock of Izard were observed on a patch of snow across a valley...Ray Thorneycroft reports.

Northern Spain, Picos de Europa / Asturias region 12/9/03 – 22/9/03

• This report lists the birds and some of the other wildlife seen whilst my wife and I were on an independent walking holiday in the Asturias region of Northern Spain. The walk started at Arenas de Cabrales a small town beneath the peaks of the Picos De Europa mountains, wound through the Picos 'foothills' (Sierra De Cuera) and finished at the Atlantic coast near the small fishing port of Llanes....Brian Russell reports

Biscay and the Picos de Europa 11/9/02 – 17/9/02.

• The combination of Biscay with what must be Europe's easiest summer Wallcreeper site is very easy to do independently - why go all that way to spend only four hours in Spain? Our trip covered seven days, including a weekend, giving four full days in Spain. The scenery in the Picos is magnificent....Nick Ransdale and Corazon Dye report.
  
  

Birdwatching on Spains Southern Coast
John R. Butler: Buy from Amazon.co.uk

• Written by local expert and guide, John Butler, "Birdwatching on Spain's Southern Coast", is the ideal accompaniment for the holidaying birder on Spain's Southern Coast. The real strength of this guide over similar books is the information about the lesser known sites close the resorts of the Costa's. Great if you only want a quick hours early morning jaunt before the heat of the Summer sun becomes unbearable. Also covered in good detail are Doñana and the main Almeria sites...Recommended.

The Complete Guide to the Birdlife of Britain & Europe
Rob Hume, Peter Hayman (Illustrator): Buy from Amazon.co.uk

• This is quite simply the best illustrated guide to Europe's birds that I have seen. Every bird is pictured at least five times (and sometimes twenty times) in varying poses within its habitat. Seeing the birds in context, really gives this book the edge.
  The text, written by an expert, is concise, thorough and up to date. Many of the recent splits are included. The likes of Yelkouan Shearwater and Southern Grey Shrike are illustrated superbly for perhaps the first time in any recent guide.
  More than a field guide, the book is coffee table size, and certainly deserves to be in the collection of every serious bird watcher.
  

Collins Bird Guide
Lars Svensson: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• "Well, it has been much hyped but it is all true. This beats most other European guides by a significant margin. The songs and calls are extremely well notated, even though the pronunciation takes some getting used too. Many pictures for each species. Very information dense. Buy it. The best available bird identification book for Spain

Where to Watch Birds in North and East Spain
Michael Rebane, Stephen Message: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• North and east Spain embraces an impressive range of habitats from the Pyrenees to the sun-drenched Catalan coast. As a consequence the area is rich in birdlife and full of potential for visiting birders. The 189 sites are described in terms of habitat, access and the species to be seen. The 104 major sites are accompanied by a map as well as maps of the region to show the location of each site.

The Rough Guide to Spain
Mark Ellingham: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• Published Jan. 2002, "The Rough Guide to Spain" is thoroughly up to date (all the prices are in Euro's!) and of the usual high standard that we have come to expect from Rough Guides. This is an excellent guide to my favourite place in Europe for a bird watching holiday. Over a thousand fact filled pages entice the reader to visit the towns, castles and Moorish villages, so full of character and history. For the birder, there is a very useful section on wildlife that gives an overview of the birds to be seen and the main regions to see them.

The Rough Guide to The Pyrenees
Marc Dubin: Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

• Anyone could find their perfect retreat in the Pyrenees, a range that encompasses in its four-hundred-kilometre length a diversity of landscapes rarely equalled in Europe. Between the balmy beaches of the Mediterranean and the more turbulent Atlantic coast lie regions of lush meadowland, peaks permanently clad in ice, sun-beaten canyons of sinuously sculpted rock, swathes of dense broadleaf forest, weirdly eroded limestone pinnacles and valleys so sheer and overgrown that scarcely a ray of light penetrates them.