A mixed bag of results today with a great start, flat middle and a great evening finish. The wind was a North-Easterly with a clear blue sky and temps up to 28C.
We started at 7am as usual in the restaurant and then we set off to Tarifa town centre and took a walk to Tarifa Island. I couldn't believe that several Honey Buzzards were already on the wing heading out to Morocco, they came over extremely high and were joined by a Short-toed Eagle, a Black Kite and we saw two Eurasian Sparrowhawks.
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| Monarch butterfly outside the hotel feeding on Lantana |
On the beach below the causeway to Tarifa Island we saw Sanderling and Ringed Plover and on a rock a Whimbrel stood preening. Our best sightings were when we looked out to sea. Looking eastward into the rising sun we found many Balearic Shearwaters and a few gulls but looking westward into the Atlantic Ocean we could see very clearly about 20-30 Cory's Sheartwaers feeding offshore, A couple of Northern Gannets went by too.
We then drove up into the hills behind Tarifa to visit the raptor watch point where we spent an hour or two scanning the skyline to the north. It was slow going, not many birds were coming over. We saw about 20 Short-toed Eagles, 5 Booted Eagles, 30 Black Kites and a dozen or so Honey Buzzards. A couple of Eurasian Sparrowhawks flew over quite low and many Griffon Vultures drifted over the distant hills.
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| looking back to Tarifa from the causeway to Tarifa Island |
From the hills we drove back down to the coast road and turned into the Ojen valley. The valley is quite open and flat to start with, we saw both Spotless and Common Starlings on a telegraph post after a kilometer and several flocks of Corn Buntings in the fields with the obligatory Stonechats on the fence-lines. We stopped after about 2km and took a short walk, it was very warm now as we were out of the cooling breeze. We noted several birds of prey above us, all the ones mentioned above plus a good flock of Bee-eaters, some Pallid Swifts, Red-rumped Swallows and a Montagu's Harrier.
Our lunch stop was taken in a small wild olive grove where we spent an hour or so looking at flycatchers and our first Common Redstart of the tour, we also watched a party of Short-toed Treecreepers. A quick visit to the Amoldova lake didn't produce anything except a fleeting glimpse of our first Woodchat Shrike.
So we headed back to the coast and paid a visit to Bolonia, well to the mountains west of the village. We had a nice watching raptors fly over and a huge flock of some 500 White Storks circled on the thermals for an hour or so. Many Honey Buzzards, Black kites and Booted Eagles drifted over together with both Marsh and Montagu's Harriers.
On the rock face we found Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Bunting and Sardinian Warbler, there were a few Griffon Vultures sitting on the ledges and gave us some good photographic opportunities. We then drove down to the village for a coffee break, whilst sitting on a terrace we watched good numbers of Black Kites Drift over at an incredible height we also found our first Egyptian Vulture up there.
We decided to take an hour long break back at the hotel because we planned to eat out and then go looking for nightjars. So after our break we set off at 5:30pm for La Janda, the wind had dropped a little and it felt just nice as we got out of the bus to watch birds at La Janda.
A large group of waders were seen in a recently ploughed field which was now being flooded. At least 20 Green Sandpipers were there with two Common Snipe, 2 Ruff and 2 Yellow Wagtails. The usual Grey Herons, White Storks, Little & Cattle Egrets were everywhere as were Zitting Cisticolas and Stonechats. At the far end of the central track we stopped to watch a large flock of Spanish Sparrows and then many more waders in the open pools. To our great surprise there were 3 Garganey in with a small number of Teal, Mallards and Shoveler. A single Collared Pratincole sat very close to the track and hundreds of Glossy Ibis fed with the stilts and egrets. A couple of Purple Herons flew around in the middle distance.
It was now approaching 7pm so we left the rice fields and drove to Vejer where we sat in a restaurant for dinner. At 8:30pm we were back at La Janda, it was quite different now, it looked amazing in the weakening eye of day, the colours of the setting sun were quite superb.
Hundreds of birds were leaving to seek out their roost sites, a flock of several hundred Glossy Ibis flew right over us, a magnificent sight. As we drove over the tracks towards our 'nightjar' site we stopped to watch Black-winged Kite and in one filed alone there were 50 Common Pheasants with a few Red-legged Partridges.
We made our nightjar run and soon found one sitting on the tarmac as expected, it didn't stay long and the 'photographers' were not ready, so we made a second run and found a second bird. This time the bird stayed put for us, we enjoyed 10 minutes as we took many pictures before we drove off and left in peace.
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| A Red-necked Nightjar sitting on the road in front of the bus at La Janda |
We got back to the hotel at 10:30pm but it had been worth it, a long day but some great sightings in the end.
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