Weather: dry sunny and warm most of the day with cloud later
We must have seen well over a 1000 Honey Buzzards throughout the day, they were everywhere, even from the early hours of the day.
Our day started at 8:30am as we left thevillage and headed north towards Ronda, we stopped at the chestnut woods and stayed for an hour during which time we found Eurasian Nuthatch, Crested Tit, Firecrest, Cirl Bunting, Serin and lots of common English' garden birds. A pair of Bonelli's Eagles circled above and a Booted Eagle drifted over whilst we were there.
As we drove down into the Guadiaro valley we noted our first Honey Buzzards coming up out of the woods. At the river we had a great time in perfect weather. A hazy sunlight gave us excellent light and it wasn't too hot. The river level was quite high after last weeks' rain but we found many species around it. Blackcaps, Cetti;'s Warbler and Common Nightingale were the most voiciferous followed by Chaffinch, Serin, Stonechat and Sardinain Warbler. The species came thick and fast as we walked the river bank looking into the open fields, cork woods and riverine scrub. Woodchat Shrike, Garden Warbler, Corn Bunting, Common Cuckoo, Short-toed Treecreeper, Rock Sparrow, Mistle Thrush, Hawfinch, Grey Wagtail, White Wagtail, Little Ringed Plover and Long-tailed Tit.
But it was the Honey Buzzard passage that stole the show, small 'kettles' were seen in many areas and over most hilltops aorund us, soon they got bigger with larger ones having 50-80 birds circling together. We also saw many Booted and Short-toed Eagles, Eurasian Sparrowhawk, Common Kestrel and small groups of Bee-eaters.
At Montejaque we spent some time looking for Rock Thrush in the Llanos de Libar without success, however we did add, Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Bunting, Black Wheatear and Black Kite to our list and again we saw hundreds of Honey Buzzards. Some distance Chough and Alpine Swifts joined Crag Martin onto our day list. Next stop was the limestone valley at the Montejaque dam (that doesn't work) where good views were had of Black Wheatear, Black Redstart, Red-billed Chough, Crag Martin and lots of Blue Rock Thrushes.
A cork oak woodland was our next venue, we walked for about 30 minutes and got good views of a Subalpine Warbler bathing, Bonelli's Warbler and plenty of Blue and Great Tits.
After a brief visit to the centre of Ronda (to look at the famous bridge) we spent our last couple of hours walking the Encinas de Borraches track. Birds were everywhere, we quickly logged: Southern Grey Shrike, Thekla Lartk, Woodlark, Black-eared Wheatear and a very showy Spectacled Warbler. Other species in the area were Common Cuckoo, Linnet, Goldfinches and a single Red-legged Partridge.
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