Today I took out Gill Noel and Megan and Mathew (from the USA), both couples were with me for their third day out. It was a lovely morning with a bit of a chill in the air.
We left the village at 9am and drove the short distance up the hill on the Ronda road to the chestnut woods. These chestnut trees are fully laden with an enormous amount of fruit and very obligingly they have a lot of dead branches protruding from their canopies, this is where our local flock of Hawfinches love to sit. Sure enough the finches where there sunning themselves before flying off to feed.
 |
| Hawfinch |
The rest of the wood was very quiet but we did catch up with: Eurasian Nuthatch, Crested Tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Eurasian Sparrowhawk. At the site of the old Gaucin bull-ring we found a flock of 6 Mistle Thrushes, a European Robin and some Blue Tits.
We drove further northward towards Ronda stopping just once to look at a flock of 11 Bee-eaters which were perched on some wires and showing well at the side of the road.
 |
| Probably the last of the Bee-eaters I will see this year |
At the Encinas Borraches track we spent a couple of hours watching several good species. A huge flock of Corn Buntings (100+) has now gathered in the area and we watched coming to drink. Also at the puddle were Rock Sparrow, Rock Bunting, Linnet, Serin and Goldfinch.
A little further afield we found several Whinchats, a couple of Northern Wheatears, Thekla Larks and a pair of Southern Grey Shrikes. As we approached the heathland area we found a Little on the rocks and we had very distant sightings of Blue Rock Thrush and Black Wheatear and a couple of Red Deer stags.
 |
| One of 5 Whinchats in the area |
 |
| Red Deer stags |
Other species seen were Woodchat Shrike, Marsh Harrier, Griffon Vulture, Short-toed Eagle, Common Kestrel and Sparrowhawk. On the heath we found a couple of Dartford Warblers, one of which was particularly obliging and perched right on top of a bush for us, how nice!
After a quick coffee stop we drove into the natural park at Sierra de las Nieves where we parked at the entrance car park and ate our picnic lunch at the tables provided. Whilst eating we watched a very showy male Common Redstart and we located by call a small flock of Woodlarks (5) which were feeding in the nearby grassy scrub.
 |
| Woodlark from the flock of 5 |
As we drove deeper into the park we logged Jay, Willow Warbler, Stonechat and we stopped to watch several Black Wheatears. The odd Pied Flycatcher was still about and we had a couple more of sightings of Dartford Warbler and we found Spectacled Warblers, one of which perched on a fence for us to admire. Several Crag Martins were hawking the hillside as we reached a higher elevation.
In the pine woods we spent some time tracking down several Firecrests, we all eventually had great views of them. A small stream, which is fed from a natural spring, attracted several birds to drink. It was really great to see Hawfinch, Mistle Thrush, Chaffinch, Pied Flycatcher and Grey Wagtail at the stream either drinking or bathing.
 |
| The view from our picnic site into the park, we found several common Redstarts and the Woodlarks in this area |
Raptors we few and far between: we only recorded Griffon Vulture, Kestrel, Short-toed Eagle and whilst at the coffee stop we saw 10 Black storks fly over. As we left the park we stopped to enjoy much closer views of Black Wheatears.
That concluded the day tour and also the visit of Megan and Mathew, they had seen a good variety of species during their short stay in the area and had list well over 100 species.
No comments:
Post a Comment