Our second day of this tour was again full of exciting sightings with some very warm weather and all day sunshine.
We left the village at 8:30am and drove straight to the Encinas Borraches (drunken oaks - is a literal translation which refers to some oak trees with twisted trunks found a couple of kilometers down the track).
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| The drunken oak gang at Sierra de las Nieves |
The bright sunny conditions were perfect for birding and the temperature was a nice 20C. Bird sightings came thick and fast, we started with a flock of about 10 Woodlarks, they were joined in the rocky scree by a couple of Thekla Larks. A Southern Grey Shrike posed beautifully on top of a bush and a flock of Corn Buntings landed nearby.
A small man-made pool of water held very little water but enough to attract many birds to drink, we found Goldfinch, Rock Bunting, Thekla Lark and Corn Buntings there. Our next bird caused a bit of a stir as we located a beautiful male Black-eared Wheatear, it also posed well and we discovered a family party of them, 4 birds altogether. A couple of middle distant birds were found sitting high up on rocks, first a Black Wheatear and then a Blue Rock Thrush wee both seen well.
In the broom and hawthorn scrub we tracked down, Common Redstarts, both the male and female varieties, also a few Spectacled Warblers, they proved difficult at first but we got there in the end. As we moved along the track the terrain changed from open rocky scree with scattered bushes to a kind of heathland with much denser scrub and it was there that we found our first Dartford Warblers of the day.
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| Two shots of an obliging Woodlark |
Other birds seen during this walk were Linnet, Rock Sparrow, Rock Bunting, Bee-eaters, Sparrowhawk (2), Common Kestrel, Sand Martin and hundreds of House Martins.
The list of butterflies was quite good too with sightings of Rock grayling, Striped Grayling, The Hermit, Sage Skipper, Adonis Blue, Small Copper, Meadow Brown and Bath White.
At Sierra de las Nieves we parked in the recreation area near the entrance a nd spent an hour watching a good number of species. We started with Common Redstart, Pied Flycatcher, Spotted Flycatcher, Subalpine Warbler, Sardinian Warbler, Willow Warbler & Garden Warbler. More Bee-eaters flew over as did a couple of Griffon Vultures. We added Cleopatra to our butterfly list.
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| Adonis Blue - a very 'fresh' individual and very bright blue when on the wing |
Further into the park we stopped to look for Dartford Warbler, which we saw well and we also turned up Black Wheatear, Spectacled Warbler, Common Redstart and plenty of Stonechats.
Our picnic lunch was taken beneath tall pine trees on the tables provided and during our lunch break we located; Coal Tit, Grey Wagtail, Chaffinch, Firecrest, Great Spotted Woodpecker and a small flock of Crossbills flew over. Lots more Bea-eaters chirped above us as we walked along the track in the pine woods. We had good views of those species just mentioned and added Pied Flycatcher, Wren (heard), Short-toed Treecreeper (heard) and Booted Eagle.
We spent the last part of the trip at the top of the track where the woods gave way to open mountainside and low scrub. We found a Northern Wheatear and a couple of Common Kestrels but not much else. For the last hour of our day we drove into Ronda where we spent some time on the famous bridge.
The day ended at 5:30pm as we arrived home, we had logged 51 species of birds and 16 butterflies.
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