Great Bustards

Today we drove south from Loarre to Daroca, taking all day and stopping several times. About midway, after lunch, on an extensive steppe some 25 km southeast of Zaragoza,  we saw two groups of distant great bustards, totalling 30--a high proportion of the 35 reported in the area (these are males, which are much larger than females). Spain has the majority of Europe's great bustards; we had last seen them in 2001, on our first birding tour in Europe. They are perhaps the heaviest flying animal.  

Other high points of the day were black-bellied and pin-tailed sandgrouse--two other Spanish steppe species. A real surprise not too far away were Iberian ibex, not usually found in the area, and endemic to the Iberian peninsula.