COTO DONANA AND EXTREMADURA - 9 DAY TOUR - DAY 4 - 30TH APRIL 2014

MATALASCANAS CLIFFS – LAGUNA PRIMERA DE LOS PALOS – MARISMAS DE O’DIEL – LAGUNA DE PORTIL – NIEBLA CASTLE

It was another eventful day with excellent weather throughout, wall to wall sunshine with a nice breeze at the coast and lots of birds to see.

We set off after breakfast at 9am and drove the short distance down to the coast at Matalascanas for a quick sea-watch to start the day off. We had a cool breeze at our backs as we scanned the sea hoping for a passage of anything avian. All we got was a small number of Sandwich Terns and a Whimbrel which fed nervously on the beach, as we returned to the buses some of group saw a Peregrine Falcon and we all noted Pallid Swifts near the car park.

 

The KOS - I can't think why I asked them to stand on this railway line?

 

Our next birding stop was  made just outside Huelva at the Laguna Primera de los Palos, where we watched Whiskered Terns, a selection of wildfowl, a couple of Purple Swamphen and a Squacco Heron.

At the Marismas de O’Diel we noted a couple of Ruddy Turnstones as we crossed the river O’diel,  our first stop was made at the salt pans where we scanned the huge area for waders and gulls. A few Yellow-legged Gulls sat on a bank nearby and with them we found Audouin’s  Gull and a couple of Lesser Black-backed Gulls, a Common Shelduck also sat not too far away.

A large flock of waders consisted of Dunlin, Curlew Sandpiper and a couple of Little Stint, all of these birds were sporting their summer clothes and looked superb. One good find was an Osprey, this bird was eating a large fish and was most probably one of the nesting pair of the O’Diel. These birds have bred there since 2012 on a platform provided for them.

Curlew Sandpiper showing off its summer plum.

The Laguna de Calatillo was very quiet with no sign of the breeding Little Bittern. Our next stop was at the ‘old’ salt pans where we spent a nice time watching more wading birds. We added more Whimbrel to our list,   as well as Common Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Redshank, Grennshank and a few Red Knot looking very red. From our view point out on the marsh we had the first views of Montagu’s Harrier, eventually we all had great views of at least 3 different birds, a male Marsh Harrier was also nice to see.

We continued down the road towards the lighthouse, as we progressed the strip of land that we were travelling on began to narrow, we then had the Atlantic Ocean on our right and the river O’diel on our left. We crossed over a bridge and saw Eurasian Curlew, Bar-tailed Godwits and Greenshank below us.

Then our bird of the day was seen! Another group of birders were ahead of us and they began to wave as we approached indicating for us to join them, we soon realised the reason for their excitement when we saw a ROCK THRUSH sitting on top of a bush, what superb looking bird, we spent 30 minutes watching it and at one stage it flew near to us and sat on top of a fence, its colours were sublime, how lucky we were seeing this.

a record of the ROCK THRUSH

 

Other birds seen in the narrow strip of scrubland included Woodchat Shrike,  Crested Lark, Stonechat and Linnets.

More marshes and areas of exposed mud provided more waders, large groups of Whimbrel were flying around and feeding with more Dunlin, Curlew Sandpipers, Sanderling, Little Stint and we found Kentish Plover and lots more Grey Plover. Good numbers of Little Terns were nice to see and the odd Sandwich Tern fished out over the river. Finally we stopped near the lighthouse where the land mass was now less than 100 meters wide. On a large flat area we watched over 120 Collared Pratincoles feed above us, what a fantastic sight, distant raptor sightings included Montagu’s Harrier, Booted Eagle and a distant Falcon sp. caused panic in the pratincole flock.
 

 By now lunchtime was pending so we drove back towards the visitor’s centre and along the way we stopped to look for a warbler that dashed into a bush, this led to a twenty minutes sortie as we discovered a Dartford Warbler and several Flycatchers, we found three Pied and a couple of Spotted Flycatchers.

For our afternoon birding we first visited the large Laguna at El Portil, it was covered in birds most of which were Common Coot there must have been a couple of thousand of them. We also noted good numbers of both Common and Red crested Pochard as well as Shoveler, Mallard and Gadwall. On the shoreline of the Laguna we saw Little Ringed, Common Ringed and Kentish Plovers, Black-winged Stilts and Common Sandpipers. A nice observation was a European Chameleon found sitting in the broom plants.


LESSER KESTRELS AT NIEBLA

 Lastly we stopped at Niebla Castle to watch the Lesser Kestrels, they were fantastic in the late afternoon sunlight and gave us quite a show as sat drinking coffee and cold drinks adjacent to the castle walls.