OCTOBER 9TH - DAY TOUR

TARIFA - RAPTOR WATCH POINTS - ALGOROBBO & CAZALLA - ZAHARA TO BARBATE - BARBATE MARSHES - OJEN VALLEY

Mike and Annie are stay for a few nights here in Gaucin and Mike had alist of two birds he most wanted to see! Easy you might say - just two sepcies! Well the two species were Rupell's Vulture and Bald Ibis only two of Spain's rarest birds....thats all.

We did in fact find two of Spains rarest birds but not the two on Mike's List

We set off at 8am in the dark and headed straight down to Tarifa, our first stop was the viewing station at Algorobbo. It was windy, dull and pretty well overcast, chilly too. Not the best conditions for watching soaring vultures. As soon as we got out of the car a Long-legged Buzzard drifted right over the top of us - what a fantastic start, the bird stayed in view for a couple of minutes before drifting off. Wow, follow that. Well we couldn't of course....but we did see up to 60 Griffon Vultres (most of them very distant in bad light), we also saw lots of Booted Eagles, several Short-toed Eagles, a single Hobby, Peregine Falcon, Common Kestrel, at least 3 Sparrowhawks and a Black Kite.

At Cazalla watch point we were alone and it was even windier so we didn't stay long. From there we saw more Griffon Vultures (50+), Booted and Short-toed Eagles and Black Kites.

Next we drove to Zahara de los Atuns on the coast. We search the coastal strip for the Blad Ibis in the areas where I had seen them before, but we had no luck. We drove the new reserve near Barbate which forms part of the Marismas de Barbate complex. Many waders were present including: Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper, Little Stint, Ringed & Kentish Plovers, Greenshank, Greater Flamingo, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, a small falcon flew across the new scrapes in the distant and it looked very much like another Hobby!

At the north-west end of the marismas de Barbate (near Vejer) we walked along the track near several pools where we found: Green Sandpiper, Wood Sandpiper, Yellow Wagtail, Redshank and lots of Black-winged Stilts.

We then spent the next 2 hours travelling a circular route looking for the elusive
Bald Ibis, we even tried a local Golf Course to no avail.

After giving up on the Ibis, we made a brief stop at a raptor watch-point on the road to Bolonia without success and we ended up at another Raptor watch-point near the Pena Ridge. Within 10 minutes we located a Rupell's Vulture (juv, it drifted along the ridge in very good light with four Griffons. RESULT! The bird stayed in view for a few minutes before drifting off. We hung around for a few more minutes before setting off for home, it was 5:30pm a long day.......just for one bird!!!