Santa Marta – Monroy – Trujillo
- Campo Lugar - Madrigalejo Rice fields - Moheda Reserve
Today we spent a lot of time in search of sandgrouse as both the Pin-tailed and the Black-bellied species had eluded us thus far. It was a dull overcast day, but it remained dry and got quite warm in the afternoon when the sun eventually broke through.
We began
our day at 8:30am by
driving up to and through Trujillo
then onto the open grass fields near to Santa
Marta, we checked a favoured field of the Pin-tailed Sandgrouse.
Not a grouse in sight but we found 9 Great Bustards, Red Kite, Calandra Lark,
Skylark, Meadow Pipit, lapwing and 3 or 4 Hoopoes. For the next two hours we
made many stops as we drove to Santa
Marta and up to the Monroy – Trujillo road. There were many birds in the
fields and the sky always had vultures or kites in view. We came across a dead
cow which was surrounded by Griffon Vultures; they were just starting to devour
this ‘tasty morsel’.
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| European tree rog |
We also
found a Black-winged Kite sitting on a fence post and a male Hen Harrier
chasing distant larks. Another dead animal had both Griffon and Black Vulture
in attendance whilst a ploughed field held 200+ lapwings and hundreds of
Spotless Starlings, we must have seen 10 Hoopoes, 15 Southern Grey Shrikes and
thousands of Spanish Sparrows.
We gave
up looking for sand grouse at 11:30am and drove into Trujillo to buy lunch and then we headed
south towards the rice fields. We turned off the main road onto a country lane
that led to Campo Lugar; we stopped to search the fields and to eat our picnic
lunch. During this stop we found Raven, Hen harrier, marsh harrier, Red Kite,
hundreds of Lapwings and larks and to our great joy we found 3 Little Bustards
in the grass not too far from the road. They walked away from us and eventually
flew off high to join a huge flock of even more Little Bustards; there were at
least 70 of them, a splendid sight. It was whilst we were watching the Bustards
that a couple of smaller birds flew across our line of sight. They turned out to
be Black-bellied Sandgrouse we watched them until they landed in a nearby
ploughed field, we drove nearer but failed to get good views of them as they
walked over a brow in the field.
From the
open fields we drove to the rice fields near Madrigalejo for our second visit.
An hour search produced many sightings of Red Avadavat, Common Waxbill and
Zitting Cisticola. We also found Hoopoe, Southern Grey Shrike, two Bluethroat,
White Storks, Little Egrets, Serins, Spanish Sparrow, Cetti’s Warbler and Tree
Sparrow.
For the
latter part of the afternoon we drove to the new ‘Crane Reserve’ at Moheda. We
parked near the raised embankment of the new reservoir and as we walked to edge
of the embankment we found a couple of Dartford Warblers, a flock of Serins,
Sardinian Warbler and we saw some distant Cormorants. Our view of the reservoir
was unbroken from the top of the embankment from where we logged: Great White
Egret, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Kingfisher, Mallard, Shoveler, Common Pochard,
Teal, Northern Pintail, Great crested Grebe, little Grebe, White Wagtail and a
few Cattle Egrets flew over.
We
walked half way round the reservoir and scanned the surrounding rice fields,
this where we found our only Common Cranes of the trip! There was 42 of them
feeding in the corner of the nearest field, a great result, but compared to
last year, when we found several thousands Cranes in the same location on the
same date, it was meagre, to say the least. Further species seen in the scrub
included: Common Chiffchaff, Red Avadavat, Blackcap and Sardinian Warbler.
Finally
we drove back towards our guest house but we decided to try the rice fields
once more. So for half an hour we scoured the fields and hedgerows looking for
Penduline Tit but came up with: Common Sandpiper, Green Sandpiper, Common
Snipe, Water Pipit, Long-tailed Tit, Common Waxbill, Zitting Cisticola and lots
of common species. From the rice fields we drove straight back to the
guesthouse to prepare for dinner.
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