MAY 9TH - DAY 5 OF ANDALUCIA 7-DAY TOUR

'THE LAKES'  -  CAMPILLOS - LAGUNA DULCE - LAGUNA FUENTE DE PIEDRAS - LAGUNA SALADA.

Our day trip today took us up past Ronda into the Lake District of Spain, it was another glorious day that got a little hot in the afternoon.

We made a couple of stops along the way, the first to view a Bonelli's Eagle nest site but both adults were out when we got there. The second stop was at Teba Bird Observatory which is essentially a little car park where you can pull in and view a huge mountain cliff-face. From there you can also see one of the huge recreational lakes of Teba, the Embalse Guadaltebe. During our brief stop we saw Hoopoe, Turtle Dove, Great Crested grebe (on the lake), Red-billed Chough, Jackdaw, Griffon Vulture, Alpine Swift and a couple of small flocks of Honey Buzzard.

Laguna Dulce - taken from the hay fields

Our next venue was the Laguna Dulce found just outside of Campillos, we drove around to the back of the laguna to view the fields first. We had high hopes of seeing Little Bustard but the grass was a little too long. We did some some interesting species: A Stone Curlew with a couple of Red-legged Partridges sat in a ploughed filed. Several Gull-billed Terns quartered the hay fields as did Black-headed Gull, there were many Larks singing, mainly Crested but also a few Calandra and Short-toed Larks plus a few Skylarks.

From the fileds we could see some of the laguna and we soon notched a few new species, Black-necked Grebes looked fantastic in their summer plumage and many Grater Flamingos fed near the shore. A few Gadwall joined the mallards and Common Pochard on the water and a good number of Great-crested and Little Grebes were present.

We ate our picnic lunch at the tables provided round by the main hide, a Cetti's Warbler sang constantly as did a Reed Warbler and a Great Reed Warbler could be heard from further away. We saw many Goldfinches in the flowers and thistles and a Melodious Warbler competed with the Cetti's for our attention.

Greater Flamingo

From the hide we quickly found a couple of pairs of  White-headed Ducks, lots more Black-necked Grebes, Red-crested Pochard, Purple Swamphen and hundreds of Common Coot. Our  main target species was the Red-knobbed Coot, 5 of these elusive and rare birds have been frequenting this laguna for the past 2 months, but after searching through the Common Coots several times we could not find one!

a beautiful array of spring flowers

At Fuente de Piedras the group were amazed at the numbers of Greater Flamingos, from a high vantage point we could see the expanse of the laguna and the 'pink' areas where flamingos were breeding, it was an incredible sight. There must have been some 5 thousand pairs, amazing! We drove round to the main visitor's car park and took a walk along the boardwalk system. passing through some dried out lagunas we never saw much, only two weeks ago these pools were full of birds. We eventually came to some water, smaller pools not the main laguna. On these pools we logged Redshank, Little Stint, Grey Plover, Curlew Sandpiper, Avocet, Black-winged Stilt, many Ringed Plovers,a couple of Kentish Plovers and one or two Northern Lapwings.

Black-necked Grebe

Over the afternoon we also had several sightings of Montagu's Harriers and whilst we were watching a couple of males up high we saw a male Harrier performing some fantastic aerial display, giving us a super show of 360 degree loops etc.

We made a second attempt to see the Red-knobbed Coot at laguna Ducle on the return journey, but failed again and we searched a couple more smaller lagunas too, nevertheless we had a great day out and seen a lot of new species. So we set off for Gaucin and arrive at 6:30pm giving us an hour or so to sit on the top terrace and admire the view with a cold tinnie.