An action packed day today, with an early start and beautiful weather all day long (except for the string wind in places).
Simon and I set off at 7:30am for a short drive down to the Rio Genal Valley, it was a lovely morning clear blue sky and no wind. We parked near the bridge on the Casares road and walked up river. It was fairly quiet, not a lot of bird song, just a few Blackcaps and a Chaffinch were in song. Until, that is, we heard our target species, the Golden Oriole. We had several short glimpses of this beautiful yellow and black bird until a male sat out in full view, what a star. During our vigil we also watched a party of Long-tailed Tits, Blackcaps, Cetti's Warbler and a Grey Wagtail. On the way back to the car we notched up White Wagtail, Serin, Cirl Bunting and a lovely Turtle Dove. A Booted Eagle drifted overhead a very distant Griffon Vulture did the same.
ALL PICTURES TAKEN BY SIMON VICKERS
ALL PICTURES TAKEN BY SIMON VICKERS
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| a lovely Turtle Dove |
From the river we drove to Casraes where we collected my friend Penny who was joining us for the day. Off we all went to the valley of the Rio Guadiaro which was not far from Casares. We stopped a couple of times to look at Woodchat Shrikes, Tawny Pipit, Stonechat, Crested larks and Corn Buntings, all were perched on the fenceline or scurried along the lane in front of us.
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| An adult Woodchat Shrike above and the juvenile below |
At the Rio Guadiaro we parked up and walked through clumps of tamarisk to view the river. A small pool held no less than 18 Little Ringed Plovers, incredible, it was really nice to see so many juveniles in the group. A Green Sandpiper flew off upstream only to return a few minutes later giving lovely views. Whilst we watched the plovers our target species appeared in a bush just behind them, an Olivaceous Warbler popped out and worked its way along the bush before disappearing over the top, great result and it saved us some searching. Another Booted Eagle drifted high above as we made our way back to the car.
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| Short-toed Eagle sat obligingly for us |
Next we drove along several kilometers of track to our next destination near San Pablo, unfortunately, our short cut took us a few kilometers out of our way but we got there in the end. Just before we arrived at our destination we stopped to watch a colony of Bee-eaters, these most colourful birds sat on wires and fences and "chirrupped" at us (there's a new word for you!). Along the track we looked for our target species the Rufous Bush Robin and before long one popped out of the hedge and perched nicely for us, thank you. We had a couple more sightings of this brown bird with a red tail before a lot of disturbance by local farmers herding cattle, put paid to our birding. In the meantime we got superb views of a Short-toed Eagle perched on a pylon, Sardinian Warblers in hedgerows, Tawny Pipit, Corn Bunting, Serin and Linnets either on the track or on wires.
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| Brimstone above and Speckled Wood below |
From San Pablo we drove across the valley to look for Lesser Kestrel at a site well known to me, it was very successful, many pairs had raised chicks and were visiting their nest holes to feed them, we had splendid views of this action.
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| a juvenile Lesser kestrel waiting to be fed, and below an adult male arrives with food |
Our next target species were the Black-winged Kite and Roller, both of these species had been seen regularly in recent weeks but they didn't show up for us, what a shame. On the way round to the site of the Kite we stopped to watch an amazing numbers of Griffon Vultures, there were 64 on the ground and another 50+ in the sky above them, Simon clicked away with his Canon SX50 bridge camera.
We then drove through San Martin and onto San Enrique where we spent some time in the woods alongside of the river Guadiaro. Tree Sparrows were quickly in the bag before we sat on a log to each our picnic. Then we walked through the woods noting Spotted Flycatcher, Short-toed Treecreeper, Blackcap and lots more Serins.
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| One of the sixty Vutlures on the ground at the side of the road near San Martin |
A short stop and a brief walk in the pine Woods at Pinar del Rey produced some nice sighting especially of butteflies. Cleopatra, Brimstone, Speckled Wood, Ilex Hairstreak and Clouded Yellow. Birds started to appear after a while but it was very windy: Jay, Chaffinch, great Tit and then a flurry of Bonelli's Warblers (many of them singing), Blue Tits , Crested Tit (found by Penny) and Blackcaps.
At the river mouth of the Rio Palmones we scoped across to a sand bar and recorded Sandwich Tern (39), Black-headed Gull (1) and several Yellow-legged Gulls. Two Kentish Plover appeared for a short while and two Little Egrets paddled in the distance. One Yellow Wagtail showed briefly on the salt marsh and that was about the sum total of our findings. Passing through San Roque on the way back home we stopped to look at many White Storks, most of the nests held grown chicks ready for departure.
We made another attempt at finding the Black-winged kite without success before dropping Penny at Casares. Simon and I stopped at Sierra Crestellina to look for Bonelli's Eagle and after a short wait we got great views of an adult bird which was soaring high-up with the Griffon Vultures, it then dived down to perch in a tree near the ridge of the mountain. A minute later a juvenile bird drifted along the mountain face and landed nearby, it was great to see that the young bird had fledged successfully and was still alive and kicking.
That sighting rounded off a lovely day that gave us 60 species and lots of pleasure finding them.
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