MAY 10TH - DAY 6 OF ANDALUCIA 7-DAY TOUR

TARIFA - LOS LANCES BEACH - VEJER - SANLUCAR - BONANZA SALT PANS - TREBUJENA SALT MARSH

A very long day today was capped with some excellent sightings, top of the bill (excuse the pun) was RED NECKED PHARALOPE (3) and MARBLED DUCK (2) and lots of other goodies.

We drove to Algeciras to meet up with a taxi driver who had found my binoculars in his cab the night before, what a relief and it was quite refreshing to find an honest person,  Anyway I recovered my bins and we drove to tarifa to collect Eve who was joining us for the day.

At Tarifa, after collecting Eve, we drove to a nearby site where a couple of COMMON BUBULS had been seen for the last few days. The Bubuls, from Morocco, had set up residence in a local garden and were systematically stripping a Kumquat tree of its fruit. Unfortunately for us the owner of the tree had the same dead and was taking the fruit when we got there, so no sign of the Bubuls.

We drove to Los lances Beach, which was again quite quiet but we did find a Slender-billed Gull, Lesser Black backed Gull and we had much better views of Short-toed lark. The usual Dunlin, SAnderling, Ringed & Kentish Plovers were running around the beach pools.

At Vejer we stopped to show Eve the BALD IBIS colony, they performed very well and the chicks are looking good and healthy, in fact the Bald Ibis is quite cute for the first 6 months of its life, then it gets ugly!

A long drive to Sanlucar was worth the effort, we stopped along the bank of the River Guadalquiver just north of the town. At this point the river is very wide and tidal, the tide was low and a large expanse of mud was exposed. We found Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover, a single Whimbrel, Curlew Sandpiper and the usual Dunlin, Sanderling, Ringed and Kentish Plover. One good sighting was of Black Tern (4) flying over the river with Little Terns.

The Bonanza Salt Pans was teaming with birds, thousands of them what a great place. We quickly logged Greater Flamingo, Avocet, Black-winged Stilt, Redshank (50+), Grey Plover, Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper, Sanderling (200+), Ringed Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit and many Little Terns.

Our second stop was at another salt pan brimming with birds and we found 3 RED-NECKED PHALAROPES sitting on the water, they were all in summer plumage but they flew further away before I could photograph them, what a nice bird.

After leaving the pans we drove around to Laguna Tarelo, which also held a good number of species. many Red-crested Pochard sat on the water with Common Pochard, Whiter-headed Duck, Gadwall and Mallard.
On the island a colony of egrets were nesting, we saw: Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Eurasian Spoonbill, Night Heron and a couple of pairs of Squacco Heron. Several groups of Glossy Ibis flew over as did Grey Heron, Black Kite, Booted Eagle and Little Terns. In the reeds we found a small flock of Common Waxbills and then a Little Bittern flew out, it circled and landed in full view a little further away. Also in the reeds were a number of Night Herons and a couple of Moorhens.

Our final venue was the huge salt marsh at Trebujena which is found through the Algaida pine woods. The marshes were also full of birds, hundreds of Greater Flamingos fed in the marsh with Spoonbills and Little Egrets. A good number of terns fed over the open water, Whiskered Terns, Little Terns and a few Gull-billed Terns. On the large expanse of water near the river we found a small flock of Red-crested Pochard and to our great delight a Marbled Duck swan from the reeds to join them. Then a second bird flew over us, fantastic.

We searched for Lesser Short-toed Larks and found instead a good number of Yellow Wagtails, Corn Buntings and Crested Larks. One last good find was a Great Egret which was feeding a small channel.

It was a long drive back, we were all tired, but agreed that we had had a wonderful day out.