A full day out and a fantastic birding day tour. We started off with a bang!! Our first venue produced two great sepcieswas the road to San Martin where we searched for a reported Black-winged kite site, just as reported the birds where where they were supposed to be. Fantastic, two adult birds were on show, they flew from one perch to another until one flew off to hunt. Another great find was a ROLLER which was perched on wires very close to the kites. This is the third that I have seen Rollers in the same area and i suspect that a pair is breeding nearby.
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| BLACK WINGED KITE |
From there we returned to the Algeciras road where we stopped on the bridge just passed Jimena too look at the Lesser kestrel nesting site, unfortunately some workers we in the vicinity and had disturbed the birds, we did see about six birds high above the bridge.
We then made the long drive to laguna Medina and our hour long walk produced quite a few sightings. We saw Great Reed and Reed Warblers, Cetti's Warblers and Nightingale. We also saw Zitting Cisticola, Corn Bunting, Stonechat and a few Greenfinches. On the water there not many birds, we saw all three grebes and a few Common Pochard. A Purple Heron flew over and a couple of Booted Eagles showed.
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| THERE WERE OVER 25 WHITE STORK'S NEST ON THIS BUILDING |
We then spent some time at a smaller laguna called Salada on the way to Sanlucar, there we saw many Common Coots (but not Red-knobbed ) White headed Ducks, Common and Red-crested Pochard and all the grebes.
At the Salt pans we had great views of Slender-billed Gulls, Sanderling, Avocets, Black-winged Stilts, Grater flamingos and lots of Little Terns. From there we visited the laguna Tarelo it was great full of birds we logged so many new species: Night Heron, Squacco Heron, Purple Heron, Little Bittern, Eurasian Spoonbill, Common Waxbill and several duck species.
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| SLENDER BILLED GULLS |
The marshes at Trebujena were also very productive, we added Whiskered Tern, Glossy Ibis and lots of kites, both Red and Black Kites hunted over the river and marsh. Many ducks and waders fed on the open water but we failed to find marbled Duck which is normally a regular sighting there.
Lastly we stopped off at Chipiona hoping for a sighting of Little Swift, a colony is now firmly established there, but still we never saw them!! However we did see small numbers of Northern Gannet out at sea.
Well that concluded our day out, it was along drive home but we all felt that it was worth it.
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