What a superb day's birding we had today, the mother-in-law had gone and I was relaxed and refreshed! We totaled 106 species and in the process added some great sightings, we visited some great venues and have memories that we will treasure for a long time.I collected Richard, Kieran, Darren & Craig from Duquesa at 7:30am, they are staying in our holiday apartment for 3 nights. We had a quick cup of coffee and whilst on the terrace drinking it we notched our first bird, in fact two of them, Blue Rock Thrushes (shown below)! A Great start.
We drove towards Jerez and made a quick stop at San Enrique so that I could show the lads my Tree Sparrow site. The birds turned up on cue and so did an Osprey we also saw Blackcap, Chiffchaff & Common Kestrel.Making our way to Laguna Medina we stopped several times to watch several species, mainly birds of prey, Booted Eagle, Lesser Kestrel, Common Buzzard, Short-toed Eagle. We also saw a flock of 14 Ravens, many Jackdaws and loads of Red-legged Partridges.
At the laguna Medina we got into the duck flock of some 2-3000 birds!! Mainly Common Coot but also Shoveler, Common & Red-Crested Pochard, White-headed Duck, Gadwall, there were 3 Grebe species, Black-necked, Little & Great Crested, Black-winged Stilt, lots of Little & Cattle Egrets, Squacco herons, Night Herons and a couple of Black Terns were milling about. A Marsh Harrier hunted in the distance and Booted Eagles circled above us. Along the walk to the hide we found several passerines, Common Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher, Cetti's Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Chiffchaff & in the field behind the reserve we found a flock of some 15 Stone Curlews, Crested Lark, Black-eared Wheatear & more Partridges.
Driving towards Sanlucar we stopped at the municipal dump, not to savour the smell but to watch hundreds of White Storks, Gulls & Jackdaws feeding in the muck or roosting on the roof of the shorting shed!
Next stop was on the bank of the mighty Rio Guadalquiver just outside of Sanlucar. We notched a Peregrine, lots of Booted Eagles, Common Sandpiper, Turnstone, Bar-tailed Godwit & Audouin's Gull. The next venue was the best of the day, the Salt Pans at Bonanza, they were packed with birds of many species.
What a great time we had at the pans, we ate our lunch whilst digesting the shear numbers of birds. One pan alone held 400 Avocet with 300 Black-tailed Godwits!
There were hundred of Black-winged Stilts, Dunlin, Sanderling, Little Stint, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Curlew Sandpiper....the wader list goes on we logged 22 species of waders throughout the day.
Other good birds included Osprey, Red Kite, Peregrine, Black Stork, Spoonbill, Glossy Ibis, Slender-billed Gull, Caspian Tern (3), a couple of thousand Greater Flamingos, phew I need a rest........
We dragged ourselves away from the terrific salt pans and visited the small laguna Tarelo just outside of the woods at Algaida. We clocked a couple of new species for the day; Purple Swamphen and a small flock of Common Waxbills! What a nice surprise these little beauties were. we also found a very large Chameleon, the biggest one I have ever seen and a beautiful beast at that. We also saw more White-headed Ducks, several more Night Herons, lots of Shoveler and Pochards.
Driving through the pine woods at Algaida we stopped a few times to look for Azure-winged Magpie but we were driven back by ferocious mosquitos! we found a few flycatchers including Pied but not much else.
Our last stop was also very interesting as we searched the marshes and open lagunas of Trebujena. The star bird here was Marbled Duck, found after quite a search but we saw 9 of them in the end and very well. But most impressive was the number of greenshank (30), black-winged Stilt (300), Mallard (53) and a single Garganey (male in eclipse). Several Yellow Wagtails flitted about and a lone Whinchat was found on a fence wire.
It was now getting late afternoon and ahead of us was a long drive back so we set off via the ice-cream shop.
We added Griffon Vulture on the way home and that ended our fantastic day tour, we arrived home at 7pm well satisfied with our day's birding and fantastic tally.
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