EXTREMADURA - 7 DAY TOUR - DAY 5 - MAY 19TH 2012

ALMAREZ - ARROCAMPO NATURE RESERVE - TRUJILLO-MONROY-SANTA MARTA PLAINS

OH MY GOD - ITS RAINING. After a perfect day yesterday we awoke this morning to thick cloud and rain. This is not on!! We drove 60 kilomters north-east towards Madrid and stopped at the turning to Almarez, the rain had more or less stopped and we could see brighter patches in the sky. A short walk in an oak wood produced excellent views of our first Orphean Warbler as a pair showed well in the canopy. We  also saw Common Cuckoo, Bee-eater and Stonechat.

The drive to the Arrocampo nature reserve took 10 minutes from the wood. This reserve is centred around a huge man-made lake created adajcent to a nucler power station but the birds don't seem to mind!

We had a great time there, I had set a target of 12 new species for the list and we found 11 of them! We walked to the first pool and quickly found Purple Heron, Purple Swamphen, Little Bittern and Gull-billed Tern. Lots of Cattle Egrets, Little Egrets, Grey Herons and White Storks were also present. A single Eurasian Spoonbill dropped into the distant reed beds as we continued our walk. We spent half an hour looking for a 'reeling' Savi's Warbler, this delightful little fellow decided to show itself wonderfully just a few meters from us, everyone got great views of it in the scope.

A pair of of Kingfishers entertained us for a while whilst were watching the terns, Common Tern was a nice surprise, Whiskered Tern joined them and a couple of pairs of Little Terns were fishing nearby. Our next good sighting was of a Squacco Heron that flew over us and then we found a must-see species for this trip, Black Shouldered Kite. One was sitting on the top of a large oak in a field behind the pool, it looked cold, wet and miserable. We walked nearer as the rain subsided and the sky brightened, the Kite took off and began hunting low over the field, what a great sight, it was joined by a second bird, we watched for a good while before they disappeared into a tree.

Next we walked to another section of the lake where the Spoonbill landed, we failed to find it again but we had fun watching other species such as: Cetti's Warbler, Gadwall, Common Nightingale and we got lovely views of a pair of Zitting Cisticolas. many White Storks had built nests in the pylons, they were feeding chicks and we enjoyed watching their arrival at the nest, the Spanish Sparrows had built their nest inside the storks nest and it looked like one big happy community.

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving along the lanes between Trujillo, Monroy and Santa Marta Magasca in search of Great Spotted Cuckoos and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. It took a couple hours but we found the cuckoo, in fact a pair of them were seen at the side of the road in broom bushes. What a great find we watched them for a while, then they flew off over the fields just as the sky opened up - we all got a soaking as we ran back to the bus!!

An hour later the sky cleared up, birds of prey were on view once more: griffon vultures, black Vultures, black kites, Red Kites and the odd marsh harrier were on show. We found a low flying Hobby as we searched for sandgrouse and many Hoopoes, Bee-eaters, Calandra Larks, Crested larks, Corn Bunting joined huge flocks of painsh Sparrows out in the fields.

We concluded this part of the tour around 4pm which gave us time to pack ready for our depature in the morning to the Gredos Mountains! Different scenery, different habitats with hope of lots of new species!