I collected Mike and Lindsey from an hotel near Malaga Airport to take them on this terrific autumn migration tour of southern Spain.
The weather was very hot but an onshore wind kept us cool enough to cope with the heat. A short drive from the airport found us at the eastern end of the Guadalhorce nature reserve. It was very dry the eastern arm of the river had virtually dried up but a few birds were present, a Yellow Wagtail was our first bird of the trip it was an amazing colour for this time of the year. Then we found several Little Ringed Plovers and lots of Yellow-legged Gulls were flying over.
We drove into the centre of the reserve and parked on a high bank, from there we saw Mallard, Black-headed Gull and a bunch of Crested Larks. For the mext hour we walked along the central raised bank noting thousands of gulls and few waders. The gull flock included a few Audouin's Gulls, one of which was ringed, the ring number was noted and later we discovered the bird was ringed at Matalascanas, Coto Donana in 2012.
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| the ringed Audouin's Gull |
Wader sightings were few and far between but we managed good views of Ringed and Kentish Plovers, Little Stint, Spotted Redshank, Black-winged Stilt, Common Snipe, Curlew Sandpiper and we added Teal and Gadwall to our duck list.
From there we drove to Gaucin making a short stop to eat our picnic lunch where we saw Booted and Short-toed Eagles and we stopped at the village of Casares to watch a number of Griffon Vultures drifting over us and several Pallid Swifts dashed about.
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| Mike and Lindsay down by the river |
Finally we stopped for a walk at the river Genal where it was extremely hot, we stayed in the shade but saw few species. Grey Wagtail, Spotted Flycatcher, Sardinian Warbler, Goldfinch, Serin and a few butterflies.
We arrived in Gaucin at 5pm where we relaxed before tucking into a lovely chicken dinner cooked by my lovely wife, Dawn. We clocked just 40 species, a slow start but not bad considering the weather.
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