Destination Tarifa

The small town of Tarifa is situated by the Strait of Gibraltar on the southernmost point of Spain, only a mere 14 kms from the African continent. Standing at one of the watch points you can actually see cars moving on the Moroccan side! Almost as if you could touch it.
During the second week of March the migration is already in full swing, and this is the time for the first big waves of Black Kites and Short-toed Eagles to arrive. But, when it comes to birds and migration, weather plays a huge role. And it certainly does in Tarifa.
Having been here since last Saturday (March 5th), the weather has not been what I imagined, when I was planning the trip at home. The winds have been strong easterlies, here known as the Levante, and now as I am writing, it is up at 7-8 on the Beaufort scale! In this wind it is impossible to hold your camera steady or even to keep a fly-by raptor in the view-finder. Tarifa is known for its high winds, and therefore it is also well known among windsurfers and kitesurfers, but force 8 is getting too much for the birds. But it’s not only the wind. The day before yesterday heavy rain fell all day, and the nearby town of Algeciras was flooded, up to 1 m in the streets, and in the shops too. Most days have been more or less wet, but every now and then there has been a gap in the clouds, and then things start to move.

27 Black Kites, wet and bedraggled, in pouring rain on 8th of March. As soon as the rain stopped the kites continued their migration.

Yesterday (March 9th) after four o’clock the sky broke up and a blue patch of old sky opened across the Straits from Tangier in Morocco to Tarifa. The response was immediate. 30 minutes later the first flocks of Black Storks came flapping across the sea, and soon after this big flocks of Black Kites joined in. An hour after the change in the weather also larger raptors, now in the shape of Short-toed Eagles, appeared on the horizon. At first the birds came in very low, but by the time the Short-toeds arrived, they were already hundreds of meters up in the sky when they crossed the Spanish coastline. In less than two hours 4 flocks of Black Storks, the biggest with 66 birds, two thousand Black Kites, a few hundred Short-toed Eagles and  smaller numbers of Booted Eagles and Egyptian Vultures crossed the Straits. The pressure to reach the breeding grounds is terrific!

Black Kites arriving from Africa en masse yesterday, 9th of March. Here viewed from the west, the town of Tarifa can be seen on the left with the lighthouse of Isla Las Palomas, Europe's southernmost point, right of it. The high mountain in the background is Gebel Musa on the Moroccan side.

Although the migration has not been the constant stream of raptors I had hoped for, the few moments of good migration have been memorable. And although the conditions for photography have been challenging, to say the least, some of the best shots of the trip have been made possible only because of the inclement weather. Sometimes the bright sun and blue skies is not the best combination for good flight shots. Partly clouded conditions give a softer light, and the shadows and highlights are closer to each other.
One more day to go, and the forecast is grey skies with intermittent showers and a guaranteed strong Levante!