ANOTHER CÁCERES GOOSANDER

A couple of weeks ago we duly reported the first ever Extremadura Goosander record (Mergus merganser) (click here), with further general information on this rare vagrant and the unprecedented Spanish "irruption" this year compared to the dearth over the last 25 years. The star of that entry, a first-winter female, stuck around in the same Plasencia lake until at least Sunday 23 January (Javier Gayo and Sergio Mayordomo). But it wasn't the only one to get here; on 21 January J. M. Benítez observed a first winter female in Torrejón-Tiétar Reservoir, right in the middle of Monfragüe nature reserve (communicated by Ángel Sánchez). There was some doubt about whether or not it was the same bird, since there is a distance of only 26 km or so between both sites. Thanks to the detective work of S. Mayordomo, however, we now know they are different birds, since he saw both in one morning on the 23rd (the Monfragüe bird was also seen by Manuel García de Rey and Martin Kelsey, among others).