This was the second day that I took out Will & Kalpana, our American guests. It was raining when we got up but by the time we had eaten breakfast it had cleared a little.
Our first stop was at the Chestnut Woods just a couple of clicks along the road to Ronda from Gaucin, the trees being the only deciduous species in the forest looked barren and devoid of life. A Great spotted Woodpecker drummed nearby and flew across our view a little later. Other than seeing a Chaffinch, a Blue Tit, a few Griffon Vultures and a single Sparrowhawk (me only) we didn't see much else.
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| Kalpana &;Will at lunch today |
We made a quick stop at a well used track just before Estacion Cortés where we found lots of Blackcap, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, a Mistle Thrush and a Firecest.
At the river Guadiaro the sun came out and warmed us up somewhat, we walked the track than runs parallel to the river and noted several interesting species. The Rock Sparrow colony were nesting in the usual place and a few Corn Bunting were singing from various bushes. The local Red-rumped Swallows had returned after their winter break in Africa whilst the hardy Stonechats had survived another Spanish winter. Along the river a Cetti's Warbler sang and a Common Sandpiper fed in the muddy bank. A bunch of White Wagtails held court on the small weir wall and Serins and Goldfinches ate seeds in the grass verges.
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| two views of Rock Bunting - the bottom pictures shows a leucistic male |
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Above us we saw many Griffon Vultures, a few Short-toed Eagles and Booted Eagles circled over us too. Then we saw a huge 'kettle' of Black Kites with at least a hundred birds in it, very nice.
We ate lunch under an oak tree after seeing a Short-toed Tree-creeper, a Woodchat Shrike and a Sardinian Warbler. Suddenly a large flock of hirundines came down to the river, we saw Barn and Red-dumped Swallows, House and Crag Martins and a couple of Pallid Swifts with a single Alpine Swift. More Black Kites flew over (50+) before we moved off and a Grey Wagtail sat on the bridge next to us.
Next we drove into the beautiful Llanos de Libar valley behind Montejaque, it was still bright but chilly and large dark clouds loomed in the distance. We had a small list of target species and soon we were ticking them off. Blue Rock Thrush, Black Redstart, Black Wheatear, Rock Bunting and Red-billed Chough we all seen well. I then found a summer plumage Water Pipit but the bird disappeared before I got it into the scope for the others to see it, shame.
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| part of the LLANOS de Libar |
As we returned to the bus we searched the mountainside for the 'local' Bonelli's Eagles and to our great delight both of them gave us a great show. It looked as though a pair of Griffon Vultures had taken over their nest and they were not happy about this, it will be interesting to see if they managed to oust the vultures before my next visit, watch this space.
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| Asphodels |
A short stop on the way home at the chestnut woods produced nothing, so we called it a day and ended our birding at 6pm. Despite what seemed like a lack of birds we managed to notch up 50 species
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| Bonelli's Eagle record shot |
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