Today was the last day for Stephen, he had participated in the 7-day tour and stayed on for a couple days extra. We only had half a day really as we had to leave at 3pm so we kept the birding simple and close to the village.
At 8:30am we set off down the hill to the river, it was another superb morning, a lovely blue sky and no wind to talk of. At the river our target bird was the Hawfinch and it wasn't long before we found 3-4 of them in the canopy of the poplar trees, a little later we saw a flock of 10 flying over and away from us.
The meadows near the river were full of cattle which attracted a host of White Wagtails, a few Serins and a trio of buntings. The Buntings flew into a tree at the far side of the field and quite distant from us. I got the scope on them for a brief time and was pretty sure that they were Ortolan Buntings, before I could confirm they flew off never to be seen again! Another one that got away.
Other birds seen were: European Robin (our first of Stephens visit), Great Spotted Woodpecker, Whinchat, Pied Flycatcher, Blackcap, Grey Wagtail, Grey Heron and we heard a Cetti's Warbler.
We then drove back to the village and down to El Colemar in the River Guadiaro Valley where we stopped for a coffee. In the pine and cork oak woods we stopped a couple of times but only found Eurasian Jay, Common Redstart and a few Blue Tits.
At the Vulture feeding station there were.....vultures!!! About 60 Griffon Vultures loafed around a number of carcasses, an amazing sight and they were very close to the viewing point. After a short while most of the birds flew off and filled the sky, fantastic. Above them we saw a Eurasian Sparrowhawk and that sighting concluded our birding for the trip.
 |
| Griffon Vulture |
We drove back to the house and had lunch before driving to Malaga so that Stephen could catch his flight home.
No comments:
Post a Comment