Another very frustrating day of high winds and very little in migration watching! We decided to head eastward towards Algeciras in order to shelter from the wind, but we failed miserably. At the Torrejon municipal park which overlooks the marshes of Palmones we braved the wind and watched from the elevated hide. It was low tide and not much was on show: Black-winged Stilts, greenshank, ringed plover, common sandpiper, little egret and grey plover.
We found the pines of Pinar del Rey a little better, the leeward side of the woods wasn’t too bad with some shelter. A nice male Common Redstart started us off then over the next hour we had wonderful views of Crested Tit which was picking up nesting material from the floor, also Firecrest, a couple were found foraging in the canopy and Blackcap, Jay, Robin, Booted Eagle and several common species.
At 1pm we met up with John and Estelle who were joining us for the rest of the tour, at the meeting point we found Sardinian Warbler, lots of Monk Parakeets, a dead Woodchat Shrike and some greenfinches. Together with our new recruits we drove to Sierra Crestellina to look for eagles. After an hour we had logged griffon vulture, thekla lark, woodchat shrike, corn bunting, stonechat, blue rock thrush, red-billed chough and the stars of the show a pair of bonelli’s eagles. They put on a flying show chasing griffon vultures and alighting on their eyrie. A short-toed Eagle put in an appearance too.
We took the scenic route back to the coast by driving down the Genal valley to Secadura and on to San Enrique. Lots of woodchats, serins, corn buntings and other finches were seen. At San Enrique woods we found Tree Sparrow and Short-toed Tree Creeper.
Lastly we visited the lauguna at Torreguadiaro where the wind was still quite strong but we managed to see lesser kestrel, little owl, little egret, northern wheatear, and crested larks.
We had a little altercation with some car thieves whom we caught red-handed unloading our gear from the bus, we asked them for it back and told them not to do it again!!!
So ended another windy day, we got back to the hotel at 6pm with ample time to get ready for dinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment