Today I collected Kurt and Ann-Marie from their hotel in Marbella at 8:30am. They are Danish and they had a small list of five 'lifers' for me to find for them.
Rock Sparrow
Black Wheatear
Little Owl
Bonelli's Eagle
Calandra Lark
No problem!
KURT & ANN-MARIE IN THE FIELDS BEHIND LAGUNA DULCE WATCHING CALANDRA LARKSWe drove from Marbella up to Ronda and turned onto the Algeciras road, after 10km we stopped in a mountainous region to look for the first of the 'lifers'. Within seconds of pulling over we found our first target bird as two Rock Sparrows sat on a wall and chirped at us!!!
Then, within 5 minutes, the second bird appeared, a male Black Wheatear flew onto a rock pinnacle just below us! We watched the bird flitting about for a while and then well satisfied with our findings we set off back towards Ronda. Other species seen at this first venue were: Blue Rock Thrush, Red-billed Chough, Spectacled Warbler, Red-legged Partridge, Linnet and Goldfinch.
BLACK-TAILED GODWITS SEEN AT LAGUNA DULCEOur next stop was at the Encinas Borraches track, there we located two Little Owls within a short walk from the car, target number 3 in the bag. We also saw: Southern Grey Shrike, Corn Bunting, Thekla Lark, Stonechat, Spainsh Sparrow, Meadow Pipit and lots more Goldfinches.
From Ronda we drove towards Teba and Campillos, after 20km we stopped at a good spot from where to see Bonelli's Eagle. Sure enough as we jumped out of the car we saw a bird fly from the nearest cliff-face and was seen to chase off a few passing Griffon Vulutres. Before long we had seen two of these magnificent eagles, they soared and perched for us to admire them, that was number 4 in the bag.
Lastly we drove to Campillos and visited the laguna Dulce and surrounding fields.Our first birds there were Golden Plover, six of them were feeding close to the track. After a short drive into open fields we found several Calandra Larks, they were pairing off, displaying and cavorting on the ground. That was our final bird in the bag and it was only 12:30am.
Other species seen in the area were: Common Buzzard, Marsh Harrier, Common Snipe (seen in a ditch), Lapwing, Skylark, Corn Bunting, White Wagtails. From our vantage point on the fields we could see that the laguna was covered in thousands of birds and that is where we went next.
We ate our picnic lunch sitting in the hide overlooking the laguna. We saw many species there, the best of which were: Ruff, Black-tailed Godwit, White headed Duck, Red-crested Pochard, Tufted Duck, Ferruginous Duck, Black-necked Grebe, Greater Flamingo, Common Pochard, Teal, Shoveler, Purple Swamphen and our star find a 1st winter LITTLE GULL.
We drove back to Marbella the same way we had come, except that we stopped at the Teba Gorge, nothing new was seen but the gorge looked good.
My new friends were very happy with their day out and Kurt was over the moon with seeing his 5 'lifers'.
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