OVER 75 SPECIES RECORDED TODAY
What great start to this 7 - day holiday it was a beautiful day, sunny, warm and a nice, cooling westerly breeze.
We left the Gaucin at 8:15am and made our first stop just down the road at the dry river bed of the Genal. despite its lack of water the river still attracted many birds along its banks and surrounding scrub. We started with a Spotted Flycatcher then a White Wagtail and lots of Blue Tits. For an hour we walked the track and discovered a good selection of migrant passerines and also many resident species. Blackcaps, Garden Warblers, Common Redstart, Pied Flycatcher and Chiffchaffs. We also found Sardinian Warbler, Grey Wagtail, Cirl Bunting, Jay, Long-tailed Tit, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch and Linnets. We heard Cetti's Warbler and had nice views of Great-spotted Woodpecker.
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| Spotted flycatcher |
A short interlude was taken from birding whilst we drove to Estapona to collect Penny, another participant on the tour. Then. from Estapona we headed to Soto Grande, we made a couple of birding excursions along the way. The first was at Valdeque Golf Course where we saw Stonechat, Serin and a couple of Hoopoes.
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| Poor picture of a Common Redstart |
Next we stopped to look at a colony of Monk Parakeets before arriving at Torreguadiaro, where we spent an hour or so walking around the laguna recording: Purple Swamphen, Little Grebe, Gadwall, Coot, Moorhen, Zitting Cisticola, Kingfisher, Red-rumped Swallow, Woodchat Shrike and a Sanderling. We also heard a Cetti's Warbler singing a number of times from deep in the reed-bed.
We ate our picnic lunch in the shelter of the trees at San Enrique woods where we had good views of Spotted and Pied Flycatcher, Short-toed Treecreeper, Great spotted Woodpecker, Grey Heron and a nice party of Bee-eaters numbering around the 20-30 mark. A couple of raptors appeared overhead in the shape of Booted Eagle and Sparrowhawk. two White Storks were seen from the bus on the way to our next venue, Palmones.
The marismas and river estuary at Palmones is always a favourite of mine and often produces a good number of species, today was no exception, there were many gulls, terns and waders on the sandpit and more appeared as the tide receded. We quickly logged: Ringed Plover, Redshank, Greenshank, Whimbrel, Kentish Plover, Common Sandpiper, Dunlin, Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover and Turnstone. There were over 50 Sandwich Terns and half a dozen Little Terns. The gull flock was made up of Black-headed, Mediterranean, Yellow-legged, Audouin's and Slender-billed. On the marsh itself we found a number of Grey Herons, Little Egret roosting Osprey and a female Marsh Harrier patrolled the marshes
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| The girls at coffee this afternoon |
After a nice coffee stop we set off back to Gaucin, our last birding of the day was done at the Sierra Crestellina where we watched a number of Griffon Vultures and high up above the mountain we located several Alpine swifts - our last new bird of the day.
Other species seen earlier in the day from the bus included Short-toed Eagle and Blue rock Thrush giving us a a nice total of 78 species for the day - not a bad start at all!
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