SEPT 15TH - DAY 5 OF 7 - DAY MIGRATION TOUR

LAGUNA DULCE AND LAGUNA FUENTE DE PIEDRA

Today we headed inland for a change and decided to make it a short day by only visiting a couple of venues. So at 8:30am we set off towards Ronda, it was another beautiful moring, quite misty in the mountains at first. The temperature reached 34C during the afternoon. a flock of Bee-eaters (6) flew over the house as we stepped into the street and headed for the bus.

A short stop at a raptor bird observatory near the town of Teba produced a few Griffon Vultures, some 'Rock Doves' and Grey Heron (over a lake some distance behind us).

At Laguna Dulce we spent two hour sitting in a the shelter of a hide with a lovely breeze coming from behind us. There are usually about 35- 40 species at this site, I think we recorded 37 today! Some notable species were: Greater Flamingo (276), White Headed Duck (8), Red-crested Pochard (2), Black-necked Grebe (12), Pied Avocet (6), Little Stint (4), Curlew Sandpiper (2), Black-tailed Godwit (1), Wood Sandpiper (8), Little Ringed Plover (2), Kentish Plover (6), Whinchat (1), Pied Flycatcher (1), Purple Swamphen (1).

The rest of the list was made up of more common species such as Mallard, Shoveler, Teal, Coot, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Black-winged Stilt, Dunlin, Common Ringed Plover, Common and Green Sandpiper, Common Snipe and a couple of Marsh Harriers.

We decided to drive round to the Laguna Fuente de Piedra, this is a much bigger laguna but most of it had evaporated back in July and August. However a couple of small pools remained and were covered in birds most of which are listed above, but we did add Northern Lapwing (9), Whinchat (2), Northern Wheatear (1) and Yellow Wagtail (17) to the day list. Along the track to the laguna we stopped to watch a small flock of Tawny Pipits which settled very close to the bus.

That concluded our birding for the day we set off back to the village and arrived at back at 3:30pm - this was planned as 'leisure time' as some of the group wanted to walk around the village and up to the castle. But as it was 33C when we got back I don't think anyone made it out of the door.