After a month and more of glorious butterfly action, it was back to the birds. With hints of autumn migration underway, August began on a high with two Great Snipes flushed from wet meadows. With Hoopoes and Wryneck also on the menu, and a trickle of warblers through the garden, it was a welcome return to avian delights.

With a yearning to see Iberian Lynx, this trip was dedicated to seeking out the felines, amongst the rarest of cats worldwide. In the event, I was extremely fortunate, not only encountering six Iberian Lynx in little over 24 hours, but also finding all the secondary targets of the trip, namely Moufflon, Spanish Ibex, Garden Dormouse and Spanish Imperial Eagle. I also enjoyed a few days general birding in some of the region's most enigmatic localities, seeing such delights as numerous heron species, flocks of up to 800 Collared Pratincoles and a clean sweep of all five of Europe's swifts.