OCTOBER 19th – DAY 4 COTO DONANA & EXTREMADURA TOUR

Matalascanas – Acebuche – El Rocio – EXTREMADURA – Presa Sierra Brava – Zorita

Today was our transfer day so our birding was interrupted by a 4 hour drive from Coto Donana to Extremadura. It was another super day, all day sunshine and great temperatures throughout apart from a chilly start.

We left our hotel in Matalascanas and made the 5km trip to Acebuche visitor’s centre where we spent an hour or so watching the antics of the Azure-winged magpies in the car park! A visit to some of the hides was rewarded with some fantastic views of Kingfisher, Common Snipe and a very obliging Water Rail. In the middle distance across the pools and reed-beds we watched Red Kites, Green Sandpiper, Southern Grey Shrike, Common Buzzard & Little Egret.

At El Rocio the ‘new’ visitor centre and watch point is still not open after nearly 2 yrs of completion! So we watched from the fence which did not afford much of a view. Distant birds included Avocet, Black-winged Stilt, Black-tailed Godwit, Greater Flamingo and lots of the common ducks. We left for Extremadura at 12:15pm.

Our jouney was uneventful except for seeing many Red Kites and a ‘kettle’ of White Storks with Griffon and Black Vultures. We stopped at the dam and reservoir just south of Zorita where we were astounded at the sight of so many ducks. There must have been between 6-8,000!! These were mainly Mallard and Shoveler but there were also Great crested Grebe (100+) & Greylag Geese. From the dam we looked down to see Squacco Heron, Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Hoopoe, Jackdaw (55) and our first Great Bustard. Another stop in the open fields near Zorita produced many Lapwing, Crested Lark, Calandra Lark & Peregrine Falcon.

It was now getting on for 6pm so we made the last leg of journey northward to Santa Clemente where we are staying for 4 nights, in the garden we found Song Thrush, Blackcap and Robin before retiring for the day.