SEPT 9TH - 7-DAY TOUR - DAY 7

LAGUNA MEDINA - SALINAS DE PUERTA DE MARIA - RIO GUADALQUIVER AT SANLUCAR - SALINAS DE BONANZA - LAGUNA TARELO - ALGAIDA PINE WOODS

we had a busy day and tried to cram in as many sites as possible as this was our last day. We collected Jack and Marg our friends from the USA who joined us for their second outing.

We drove directly to Laguna Medina arriving around 10am in bright, hot sunshine. The water level in the laguna was still very high despite having a very dry summer and this greatly reduced the number of birds present on the water. Instead of 2 - 3 thousand ducks and coots there were only perhaps 30 - 50. Nevertheless,the reeds and riparian scrub were alive with warblers and the sky held many swifts and hirundines, including Alpine Swifts and Red-rumped Swallows.

Our best sightings along the track were of an Osprey, Melodious Warbler, Cetti's Warbler (at last a good showing by this noisy little beast), Willow Warbler, Chiffchaff, Pied and Spotted Flycatchers. Over the brow of a hill side we saw a pair of Black-winged Kites hunting, this was a good find as we had missed this species up till now.

At the hide we had great views of Reed Warbler and a family party of Penduline Tits, the water birds were few and far between but we did see 3 Grebe species, Great-crested, Little and Black-necked. A few Shoveler, Common Pochard, Mallard and a pair of Gadwall made up the rest of the ducks. A Spoonbill flew across the front of the hide just before we left and a single Gull-billed Tern quartered the laguna throughout our stay.

The salinas de Maria are a short distance away and this is where we stopped next. It was quite windy in this wide open space which made viewing through the telescopes quite difficult. We found a good flock of Stone Curlew, also we saw Redshank, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Sanderling, Dunlin, Little Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Mediterrean Gulls, Greater Flamingos and a good number of Black Kites over the nearby rubbish dump. we ate our picnic lunch at the salinas before setting off for Sanlucar.

We arrived at the Rio Guadalquiver in Sanlucar during high tide so there wasn't any exposed mud and the few waders that were present all sat on boats, these were mainly Turnstones and Common Sandpipers.

With the tide being high we decided to spend more time in the Salt Pans at Bonanza so we quickly drove to them and we were not disappointed. Although the first few pans we devoid of bird-life we found more and more species the deeper we ventured into the pans.

From the bus we had good close-up views of Little Stint, Sanderling, Curlew Sandpiper, Ringed Plover and Redshank, but there was a great number of Avocets, Slender-billed Gulls, Greater Flamingos and Dunlin in the distant pans. We stopped near a pumping house and set up our scopes to view an area covered with birds, there must have been well over a thousand birds there. We added Spoonbill. Black-tailed Godwit, Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot, Kentish Plover, Sandwich Tern, Little Tern and Common Tern, but there were hundreds of Avocet, Little Egret, Greater Flamingos, Plovers, Dunlin and Curlew sandpipers, it was really quite a spectacle and the afternoon light was just fantastic. We also saw hundreds of Yellow Wagtails in the marshes, a single Black stork and a couple of Marsh Harriers. as we left the pans we were treated to excellent views of a low-flying Red Kite, what a beauty, two Ravens nearby never got a look-in!

At the laguna Tarelo we haad a great time watching Black-crowned Night Heron (only juveniles were present), also Squacco Herons, singles of White-headed Duck, Red-crested Pochard and Marbled Duck (seen only by me). But the pool held many Mallard, Coot, Moorhen, Little Grebes, Common Pochard and Shoveler to look at, it was also great fun picking out the very well disguised Night Herons.

We drove round to the pine woods to view the laguna from the other side hoping to gett another glimpse of the Marbled Duck (another bird-watching roup had seen 3 a couple of hours before we arrived), but we failed to locate them. The mosquitos we ferocious here and we didn't stay long. In the pines we had glimpses of Tree Sparrow and Spotted Flycatcher but not much else. It was now 4pm and we were a long way from home, so we decided to drive back and cut short our search of the pines for Azure-winged Magpies.