WHAT A FANTASTIC DAY - THIS HAD TO BE MY BEST BIRDING DAY OUT IN SPAIN THIS YEAR (SO FAR) - WE CLOCKED 97 SPECIES AND FOUND SOME TRULY GREAT BIRDS INCLUDING A RARITY FOR SPAIN IN THE SHAPE OF A BROAD-BILLED SANDPIPER. WE LISTED 21 SPECIES OF WADER, 6 GULLS AND 6 TERNS PLUS A WRYNECK.
At 7pm we set off from El Rocio towards Huelva, the sky was clear, it was already warm and there wasn't a whiff of air. We drove through some thick patches of mist before arriving at the Laguna de Los Palos near the outskirts of Huelva. The water was like a mirror, perfectly still, everything was visible and although we didn't see many species it was still very enjoyable.
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| Laguna de los Palos with the oil refinery in the background |
Next we stopped at the laguna Calatilla at the entrance to the Marismas de O'Diel near the salt pans. It was fairly quiet but we did find a male Little Bittern sitting high up in the reed -bed.
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| some shots of the obliging Little Bittern - a male in breeding plumage, note the red bill |
Next we drove a little deeper into the salt marsh and spent sometime watching more waders in a muddy channel and it was there that we found our star bird and a rarity for Spain, the Broad-billed Sandpiper, it showed extremely well down to about 50 meters, these are the best shots I could get of this busy little blighter.
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| a rose between two thorns? Broad-billed Sandpiper and two Dunlin |
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| seen here besides a Curlew Sandpiper |
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After the great excitement of finding this bird the next few hours seemed somewhat underwhelming, however, our enthusiasm for birding didn't wane one iota.
We added some larger waders to the list as we got further into the salt marsh: Eurasian Curlew, Whimbrel, Bar-tailed Godwit, Pied Avocet and Oystercatcher and then we hit a second purple patch further down the road.
We had just been watching Caspian Tern and Collared Pratincoles in flight when we found a laguna with lots of species feeding or loafing in it. A good flock of gulls held both Audouin's and Slender-billed Gulls as well as Mediterranean, Black-headed, Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed. It was a rare opportunity to see so many species in one place, the light was excellent and they were not too far away.
Tern numbers were quite high too, lots of Sandwich Terns were joined by a single Common Tern, 25+ Black Terns and hundreds of Little Terns. Wader counts were pretty good too, with 8 species present!
So in this little laguna we saw 6 species of gulls, 4 tern species and 8 species of waders, how fantastic is that? it was a rare sight that we were privileged to witness.
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| bath time for the Little Terns |
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| the crowd pleasing Collared Pratincole, it looks just as good in flight! |
On the way back out of the marshes we stopped at laguna Calatilla for a second look and found a Northern Gannet sitting there???? How bizarre is that?? The bird was obviously not well and it could not fly off, it also looked as though it was oiled on it underside.
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| you won't get better views of this beautiful bird but it was unfortunate that the bird was injured and without help it will surely die. Luckily it was on water adjacent to the main visitor's centre on the reserve and was being watched by several officials from there. |
Our journey continued along the coast and our next stop was the laguna at El Portil, this large 'urban' body of water is usually covered in ducks and it is a great place to find Ferruginous Duck. Today, however, the water level was very high and very few birds were present. We did see Common and Red-crested Pochard, Gadwall and both Great-crested and Little Grebes. A Crested Tit flew over us and a beautiful little Mediterranean Chameleon was found in the tamerisk.
We ate lunch on the terrace of a restaurant in El Portil, lovely warm sunshine and good food made it a very enjoyable experience and it was hard to drag the group away from there! We then spent some time searching the heath at the Rio Piedras in El Rompido in the hope that a late Bluethroat was still present but we never saw one. It was now late afternoon and it was very warm so bird movement was at a minimum. We did find many Sardinian Warblers, a couple of Dartford Warblers, Northern Wheatear, Stonechat and we saw 4 Montagu's harriers in the distance. Along the river there were several Caspian Terns and lots of waders that we had seen earlier.
As we drove off the heath we stopped to look at a warbler and as we did so a Wryneck flew up from the ground and landed in a tree not too far away. Splendid! We all got prolonged 'in-the-scope' views of this remarkable creature, we watched it licking ants off the bark of a pine tree, a little gem of a find and well appreciated by all of us.
We drove back to El Rocio and arrived at 6pm, a long day but a very enjoyable one. We spent the last hour looking into the laguna from the old, elevated road. This road is now closed and makes for a perfect bird watching platform. We added a couple of species to our day list but the laguna itself was pretty much devoid of bird life, not what it is usually like. A few Glossy Ibis flew in the distance over a flock of feeding Greater Flamingos. A single Eurasian Spoonbill sat on a small island as did Common Sandpiper, Redshank, a couple of dozen Black-winged Stilts and about 50 Whiskered Terns fed over the water. The light was superb and the warm sunshine on our backs made it difficult to move away, but we did, it was a lovely ending to a perfect birding day in Southern Spain.
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