Another lovely day, the good weather has returned. We had light south westerly winds and unbroken sunshine for most of the day. Our first stop was on the coast at Manilva, we drove inland from the coast road onto a large expanse of heathland which is made up of cistus scrub and very few trees.
The whole area is inhabited by a high concentration of Sardinian Warblers, during our 2 hour visit we must have counted over 50 of them! But our target bird was the Dartford Warbler and we got good, but distant views of several of these as well. We also watched Corn Buntings, Linnets, lots of Stoenchats and a single Common Redstart. A good sighting was of a Black-eared Wheatear and an even better sighting was of Honey Buzzards, one of them nearly took the roof off the car as is drifted over us. Plenty of Black Kites, Booted and Short-toed Eagles came up onto the thermals as the moring wore on.
A short stop at the laguna Camelias produced the expected Purple Swamphen, we also found Little Grebe, Common Coot, Moorhen and Mallard.
At San Enrique woods we spent a good deal of time watching the sky as hundreds of eagles, harriers, kites, storks and honey buzzards gathered on the thermals. One truly great sight was of 6 Red Kites, where the hell they came from I don't know! In and around the woods we found Tree Sparrow, Garden Warbler, Pied and Spotted Flycatcher, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jay, Blackcap, Short-toed Treecreeper, Kingfisher, Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Grey heron, Cattle and Little Egret and some nice dragonflies.
The Lesser Emperor - a close up
The rest of the afternoon was spent as Palmones, first we visited the village side where walked along the promenade then we drove around to the raised hide on the Algeciras side and finally we returned to Palmones village. Lots of birds were present, their numbers seem to be climbing everytime I visit, new additions included Spoonbill, Greater Flamingo, Osprey (3), Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel and over 20 Sandwich Terns. Also present were Common Sandpiper, Cormorant, Curlew Sandpiper, Dunlin, Little -Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Redshank, Green shank, Sanderling, Med Gull, Audouin's Gull and during our finally watch we found a Little Gull (my first of the autumn).
Not a high count of species today but we had a lovely relaxing day out, after all some of us are on holiday, arn't we??
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