It was a mixed bag of sightings to day as we had to change our plans because of the bad weather. We intended to visit the mountains towards Ronda but thick cloud and rain changed our minds, so we went down to the coast instead.
We left the village at 8:15am and drove down to the river, it was dull with light rain so it wasn't very pleasant and consequently we never saw too much. But as we approached the Guadiaro Valley the weather improved somewhat. We stopped to watch Corn Buntings, Serin, Goldfinches, Crested lark and a couple of Little Owls. On a pylon we found two large birds of Prey which after getting them in the scope we saw that they were in fact Bonelli's Eagles.
Further down the valley we stopped at the riverside to look at Little Egrets, Mallards, Common Coots and we also saw a couple of Common Buzzards,3 Booted Eagles and a Common Kestrel. A little further on we saw a Eurasian Sparrowhawk being chased by a Common Kestrel.
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| a distant record shot of one of the Bonelli's Eagles. The picture i took today |
At San Enrique Woods we were very disappointed to find nothing at all in the woods!! There weren't any Tree Sparrows at their usual spot either. Looking at the river from the woods we saw Common Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Common Sandpiper and a Grey Heron. Back on the track outside of the wood we saw an Osprey, 7 Honey Buzzards, 2 Booted Eagles and another Common Buzzards. Lots of Cattle Egrets sat on or around a flock of sheep. Near a small sewerage works we saw both Spotted and Pied Flycatchers and a Great Tit which was the first of the trip.
At lunchtime we drove round to the pine woods at Pinar del Rey where we sat at a picnic table and ate our sandwiches. A short walk produced, Crested Tit, Short-toed Treecreeper, Common Chaffinch and not much else.
We then drove into Soto Grande to visit the local nature reserve, the sky had now cleared and the sun came out. We found our target bird the Purple Swamphen and also lots of Little Grebes, Common Coots and a few Moorhens. Out at sea we picked out lots of Northern Gannets, a few Sandwich Terns and several Cory's Shearwaters.
A brief walk on the heath at Manilva produced a great surprise when 13 Black Storks flew over us, wonderful. On the heath it was very windy but a clear sky developed, however not many birds showed. We saw Common Kestrel, Sardinian Warbler and Stonechat.
After a second visit to San Enrique which failed to produce anything new we drove up through the Guadiaro Valley for a second time. Good weather helped to produce a lot of raptors: 9 Short-toed Eagles, 8 Booted Eagles, 6 Honey Buzzards and a couple of Common Buzzards flew over, we also saw our first Griffon Vultures of the day and our first Woodchat Shrike of the trip. More Serins a couple of Whinchats and the odd Zitting cisticola finished off our birding for the day. Let's hope that tomorrow will produce better weather and more species.
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