OUR FIRST BIRTHDAY!

Just like birds themselves, time flies. Hard as it is to believe for some of us, this blog you've now got on screen first took off one year ago. We hope it has achieved its objective, as expressed in the first blog-presentation entry published on 9 May 2010: appeal to a wider public by giving the breaking news on Extremadura's birdlife. The final say is the readers'. But the number of hits over the last year seems to justify our endeavour and encourages us to continue. There are no figures on the first feet-finding months, but, Spanish version, from July 2010 the site has clocked up over 25,000 hits, with a peak of nearly 4000 in March 2011. True it is that the blog took some time to get going, not topping 1000 monthly hits until September 2010 and 3000 in January 2011. The English version has registered 6500 hits in the same period, with a much slower upward trend, not topping 1000 monthly hits until March 2011, peaking at 1100 in April. Between both versions, therefore, some months have clocked up over 5000 hits (lots or few, according to the yardstick used).

The second entry of "Bird of Extremadura", and the first with content after the presentation, was entitled "Winter Hotspots", dealing with the provisional species-richness map after the fieldwork of the SEO/BirdLife-brokered Atlas of Wintering Birds in Spain. The definitive map has just been published in SEO's Bird Monitoring Survey 2009-2010 (Escandell et al., 2011). The picture hasn't changed much, although in the later version actual figures for the number of species in each grid are given, with red hues for those with over 50 and blue hues for those with fewer. The importance of Extremadura, especially Cáceres and North Badajoz, still stands out, but another notable feature is the species richness of some of the rivers. It's easy to pick out the course of the rivers Duero, Ebro, Guadalquivir, Guadiana and Tagus, and even some of the bigger tributaries like Jarama, Alberche and Aragón.


Acknowledgements: This first anniversary would not have been possible without the collaboration of many people, especially Dave Langlois and Sergio Mayordomo. The first has translated nearly every entry into English while the second has painstakingly recorded all the sightings of interest in Extremadura to compile the month by month summaries. This blog would probably not exist but for the Goce birdwatching forum, a lively virtual meeting and debating ground for Extremadura's bird lovers, always teeming with ideas and information that this blog has drawn on constantly. I'd like to give my thanks to all the participants in this forum and also those from elsewhere who have chipped in from time to time. Many thanks to one and all. Javier Prieta.

Escandell, V.; Palomino, D.; Molina, B.; Leal, A.; Remacha, C.; Bermejo, A.; De la Puente, J. y del Moral, J. C. (Eds.) 2011. Programas de seguimiento de SEO/BirdLife en 2009-2010. SEO/BirdLife. Madrid.

BIRDS OF EXTREMADURA (AVES DE EXTREMADURA) IN A BOOK OF BLOGS

On 31 October 2010 the Fundación Xavier de Salas brought together in Trujillo a sizeable group of Extremadura bloggers, mainly nature photographers but also news bloggers (birds in our case and other groups dealing with orchids and geology). The central moment came with the presentation of a small book containing a selection of up-and-running online blogs. Most of these blogs are for the personal expression of one blogger; Aves de Extremadura is one with a group character. This means that all of you who collaborate in Aves de Extremadura in any way, whether with observations or photos, should rightfully consider yourselves to be participants in this book. The biggest source of info, images, ideas and inspiration is without doubt the GOCE forum, a meeting point that is now recording an almost frenetic rate of activity. No fewer than 643 messages in October and 248 in the first eight days of November!! GOCE has never before been in such rude health. The growth of the forum has coincided in time with the launch of this blog (and another one of SEO-Cáceres) so the two events may well be causally related. Aves de Extremadura received almost 2000 hits last month and has been chalking up a daily mean of 100-150 hits lately.