What a cracking start to our 7 - day tour of Southern Spain and Northern Morocco we had lovely sunshine and everyone arrived on time. I collected Sandra, Chris and Andy from Malaga Airport at 11am and we drove directly to the Guadalhorce Nature Reserve, en-route we stopped to buy a picnic lunch.
It was a little windy but we sat and ate our food at the mouth of the eastern 'arm' of the Rio Guadalhorce. Our first birds on the list were Crested Larks, quickly followed by Kentish Plover, Sanderling, 3 Black-necked grebes on the sea and Great Cormorants. A couple of Ruddy Turnstones were seen on the sea defence rocks.
Little Ringed PloverWith lunch finished we walked onto the centre of the reserve and spent the next 2 hours visiting the hides that overlook the pools, wader scrapes and reedbeds of the central area. Interesting species noted were: Booted Eagle, White-headed Duck, Greater Flamingo, Little Ringed Plover, Common Pochard, Black-winged Stilt, Monk Parakeets, Barn Swallows, House Martins, Sand Martins and Common Pochard.
As we walked back towards the beach along the central track we found a nice suprise in the shape of a Wryneck, we spent 15 minutes watching this bird feeding on ants on the ground. The wader pools nearby held an interesting array of species: Black-tailed Godwit, Avocet, Greenshank,. Curlew Sandpiper, Common Sandpiper, Redshank & more Sanderling.
A well marked RedshankTo finish our visit we walked along the shore back westward to the car, we had much better views of the 3 Black-necked Grebes out on the sea but to our great bewilderment we found a single male Garganey also on the sea swimming with a large mixed flock of Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls, fancy that! Further out to sea we saw Northern Gannet and lots of Lesser Black-backed Gulls.
At 2:30pm we drove to Gaucin and stopped just passed Casares at Sierra de Crestellina where we found a Bonelli's Eagle, several Griffon Vultures and a couple of Red-billed Chough.Nearer to the car we watched Black Redstart, Song Thrush, Stonechat, Blackcap and Chiffchaff.
We finshed at 4;30am having logged 64 species on our first afternoon, not a bad start at all.We arrived at Gaucin at 5pm where we settled into our rooms. We ate alovely home cooked dinner at &:30pm a perfect end to a perfect start to our holiday.
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