SPAIN: 7 - DAY TOUR - AUTUMN MIGRATION - DAY 2 - 4TH SEPT 2014

SAN ENRIQUE WOODS - MARCHENILLA TRACK - PALMONES SALT MARSH

Another very warm day with a lovely breeze which stopped us from melting in the bright sunshine. Today we were joined by Geoff & Jane and Mark & Debbie, they were joining us for today.

We collected our four new friends from Torreguadiaro at the coast and once we were all loaded into the bus we drove a short distance to the deciduous woods at San Enrique. I was hoping for sightings of migrant passerines but what we got was a lovely spectacle of migrating raptors.


they don't often perch out in the open like this - Common Kingfisher

A spotted Flycatcher was the first bird in the scope but already at 8:45am there were many Black Kites and Honey Buzzards in the sky.  The woods were very quiet we saw another couple of Spotted Flycatchers and a single Pied Flycatcher and that was all. So we walked to the edge of the wood and stood on the bank of the River Guadiaro.

Over the next hour and a half we had a great time watching a huge passage of raptors we even saw Honey Buzzard and Black Kites perched out on the shingle banks. At times the sky seemed full of birds, kites, buzzards, swifts, swallows and the odd Booted Eagle. The river birds weren't bad either. A pair of Kingfishers delighted the group for along time, they dashed about and sat in the open for us to admire.

Marchenilla track - Eurasian Hoopoe and Black-eared Wheatear

Other birds seen on or near the water included: White Wagtail, Common Sandpiper, Grey Heron, Great Cormorant, Night Heron, Little & Cattle Egrets and a Cetti's Warbler sang intermittently from the dense scrub. As the morning wore on the raptor passage fizzled out to nothing so we moved back into the wood noting Eurasian Hoopoe, Blue Tit and more flycatchers.

Next we drove to the Marchenilla track approaching from the Jimena/San Roque road, we walked a good way along the track and had good sightings of Crested Lark, Common Kestrel, Common Stonechat, Woodchat Shrike, Northern Wheatear and another Hoopoe. Further along the track we caught sight of the expected Montagu's Harrier, in fact we saw three of them.

juvenile Woodchat Shrike

After a quick stop for cold drinks we drove across to Pinar del Rey where we sat under shade of the 'umbrella pines' to eat our picnic lunch, we saw a few Cattle Egrets and White Storks along the way. In woods we only saw a Jay but to be fair it was very hot and the birds were very quiet.

For the final session we drove to the edge of Algeciras and looked over the Salt Marsh at Palmones from the raised hide in the Torrejon municipal park. We had a lovely couple of hours there enjoying many bird sightings as the tide receded and more muddy banks became exposed.

the group relaxing in the hide at Palmones

An Osprey sat eating a fish in the distance and proved to be very popular in the ranks but a good selection of waders were enjoyed by all. Black-winged Stilts, Redshank, Greenshank, Whimbrel, Eurasian Curlew, Common Ringed Plover, Curlew Sandpiper and Common Sandpiper all showed well. We saw Zitting Cisticola, Sardinian Warbler, Black Headed Gull, another Montagu's Harrier and a good number of White Storks circled on the thermals.

We called it a day at 4pm and it was still very hot as we walked back to the bus. Our day total was 53 species.