We spent a nice relaxing day at the lakes near Campillos. It was a very misty start, as soon as we drove out of the village we hit thick fog, but it did thin out a little further up the valley as we got nearer to Ronda.
A quick stop in rocky terraine just south of Ronda produced a number of montane birds. Rock Bunting, Rock Sparrow, Blue Rock Thrush and Black Wheatear were all seen well.
By-passing Ronda we turned onto the road to Canmpillos where the mist thickened once again. It did not clear until we were well clear of Teba some 10km south of Campillos. We stopped at the little observation point which affords great views of the cliff face near Teba. We soon found Red-billed Chough, Griffon Vulture, Crag martin, jackdaw, Alpine Swift and behind us in the olive groves we found Turtle Dove, Serin and Greenfinch. High above us a Booted Eagle and a Black Kite passed over.
The first of the lagunas we visited was the Laguna Dulce, but before we visited the hide we drove round the back and explored the large open fields there. A Red-legged Partridge showed well as did several Gull-billed Terns as they quartered the fields. We also saw Skylark, Calandra Lark, Crested lark and lots of Corn Buntings. As we neared the water's edge we saw Greater Flamingo, Northern Lapwing, Black-winged Stilts and lots of Common Coots. On the water a little further out we found Black-necked, Little and Great-crested Grebes, Common and Red-crested Pochard and lots of Mallards.
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| Black-necked grebes |
Further exploration of the fields and lagunas produced more of the above plus a lovely male Montagu's Harrier. We then drove around to the hide situated on the main road where we sat and ate our lunch, a long search for Red-knobbed Coot failed to produce a single sighting, but we did find White-headed Duck and had great views of Black-necked Grebes.
From there we made the short journey to Laguna Fuente de Piedras, it was now very hot and the heat shimmer proved difficult for viewing. The track passed a fantastic view point where we see the extent of the Flamingo breeding population, it was amazing to see, some 5000 birds in close clusters. From the visitor's centre we scoped the laguna and the small pools in the area. We saw hundreds of Avocets, Black-winged Stilts and of course Greater Flamingos. We added Common Shelduck and Noirthern Shoveler.
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| White-headed Duck |
From Fuente we drove around the south side of the water and bumped into our first Hoopoe of the trip, then another one flew up from the track. We then spent the last couple of hours searching 3 more lagunas in the Campillos area, laguna Salada and Capacete held good numders of birds and you could get great close views of them. Greater Flamingos, White Headed Duck, Black-necked Grebes, Kentish Plover and Gull billed Terns to name but a few. Despite extensive searching in the hoards of Common Coots we could not find a blessed Red-knobbed Coot!
Despite our bad luck we had a great day out at the 'lagunas'.
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