MARISMAS DE O’DIEL (HUELVA) - LAGUNA EL PORTIL - RIO PIEDRAS (EL ROMPIDO) – LAGUNA PRIMERA
DE LOS PALOS (HUELVA)
It was almost a complete wash out today – we
knew there was a 70% chance of rain but it turned out to be that 70% of the day
was wet! It came in buckets at times and it never got light until way past 9am.
We abandoned our first venue and went straight to the Marismas de O’Diel where
we stopped near the salt pans and viewed the small laguna at Calatilla.
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| A few views of Bluethroat - we saw three individuals during a brief break in the rain |
The water level was very low and few species
were present, we were particularly disappointed because this is usually a good
spot for Red-knobbed Coot, but not today. We did see several species of duck
and some waders which included; Ruddy Turnstone, Common Snipe, Sanderling,
Dunlin, Kentish Plover, Green Sandpiper and Common Ringed Plover.
We drove further into the salt marsh and
stopped at several locations to watch from the bus as it was too wet to get
out. Despite the weather we had a good watching some very nice species having
great views of Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Eurasian Curlew, Osprey (carrying a
fish – what else?), Oystercatcher, Redshank and Greenshank. The gulls were good
too with some very ‘pink’ Slender-billed Gulls and also Mediterranean,
Black-headed, Audouin’s, Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A few
Caspian Terns were added to our trip list as were Sandwich Terns.
At El Portil we looked over the laguna from the
roadside, it was still raining but not so hard, the laguna was surprisingly
full of water and hundreds of ducks. There were mainly Common Pochard and
Shoveler but we found: Northern Pintail, Gadwall, Eurasian Teal, Black-tailed
Godwit, Black-necked Grebe, over 20 Eurasian Spoonbills and lots of
Black-winged Stilts.
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| Whimbrel and a Grey Plover on the banks of the Rio Piedras near El Rompido |
We took our lunch in a bar/restaurant in El
Portil before driving out to El Rompido to look on the heath for Bluethroats.
It began raining as soon as we got out of the bus, it was quite windy too, but
we held out and soon the rain eased off. Our perseverance paid off because over
the next half an hour we found at least 4 Bluethroats, Dartford Warbler,
Sardinian Warbler and Stonechat on the heath, a great result.
We then spent some time looking along the muddy
banks of the Rio Piedras for more waders and in doing so we found 4 species of
Terns. Caspian, Sandwich, Common and Little Tern were all resent in small
numbers, there was also a good selection of wader but none of which were new to
the list.
Back on the road we drove to Huelva and stopped
at the lagunas near Palos, at laguna Primera we spent an hour or so searching
for the elusive Red-knobbed Coot without success, however there was enough
birds to look at to keep us happy. We added Red-crested Pochard and Purple
Swamphen to our day list as we searched every corner of the laguna.
It was 5:30pm by the time we got back to the
hotel, we were tired, cold and still damp, we all were looking forward to a hot
bath and a warm dinner.
This was our last day in the Donana area as we
depart for Extremadura in the morning, we had amassed a total of 141 species,
which was, despite the bad weather today and the general lack of water, a very
good tally.
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