TARIFA & COTO DOÑANA 7-DAY TOUR - DAY 1 APRIL 15TH

MALAGA & GIBRALTAR AIRPORTS - EL BUJEO RECREATION AREA

Our first day involved getting the group assembled; Conor & Ann were collected from Malaga Airport at 11:30am and then Peter, Alison & Gordon were collected from Gibraltar at 2:30pm it was the shortest visit to Gib that Conor and Ann were ever going to make. John and Estelle will be arrive on Sunday to join the group for the last 6 days. After the short drive to our hotel in the foothills above Algeciras we reconvened at 4pm to head off for a short birding session. We drove to El Bujeo, a small picnic area situated along the main N340 just above Pelayo, it consists of open grassy scrub and some mature eucalyptus trees. A pair of ravens flew over as we emerged from the bus, quickly followed by 4 griffon vultures and in the scrub we found a woodchat shrike, common redstart (a nice male), a couple siskin high in the trees and a few barn swallows flew by. As we walked through the shrubs we found several bonelli’s warblers (a couple were singing), blackcap, common whitethroats, Iberian chiffchaff (also singing), common nightingale (heard only), stonechat, cirl bunting, serin and a few common species. Not a bad start to our holiday, we returned to the hotel and got ready for our dinner which was served at 8pm.