A terrific and prolific day in the mountains near Ronda. We were joined by Peter for the day, an Ex-pat living in Toronto, Canada. We collected him just outside of the village and set off on rhe road ro Ronda.
Just before we turned off rhe road to the Encinas Track we noted Rock Sparrow, Rock Bunting and Crag Martin on or near the roadside walls.
Encinas Borraches was as good as usual, we never walked too far because I only wanted to show Peter a few species there. Within 30 minutes we had found: Northern and Black-eared Wheatear, Thekla Lark, Common Stonechat and we had superb views of Blue Rock Thrush. After searching for Southern Grey Shrike without success we walked back to the bus and along the way we found not one but two juvenile ROCK THRUSHES. Amazingly they stayed in view and let us get quite close.
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| ROCK THRUSH along the Encinas Borraches track |
We then drove to the Sierras de las Nieves and had a great couple of hours, first we birded around the entrance area and listed several Common Redstarts, Spotted Flycatcher, Whinchat, Jay, Eurasian Chiffchaff and a fly over Southern Grey Shrike. We then spent a lot of time travelling deeper into the park stopping as and when we found something to look at. More Redstarts appeared we then saw Black Wheatear, Common Kestrel, Booted Eagle and a superb Firecrest.
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| Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler at the 'splash pool' |
Our penultimate stop in park produced the most birds, we parked by a natural spring and put in a lot time watching for birds coming to drink. After about 30 minutes we had only seen Grey Wagtail, European Robin and Eurasian Nuthatch, however over the next 10 minutes we located a mixed feeding flock containing: Firecrest, Crested Tit, Coal Tit, Eurasian Chiffchaff, Eurasian Nuthatch and Spotted Flycatcher.
Lastly we parked by a drinking trough where a pool of water formed below it because of a leak. We ate our picnic lunch watching several species coming to drink and bathe. It was great to see Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff side by side, we also saw Pied Flycatcher, Great Tit, Common Redstart and Eurasian Nuthatch.
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| Pied Flycatcher |
After a quick coffee stop we drove to Campillos to visit the Laguna Dulce, the water was covered in birds as usual. We listed about 25 species including some goodies such as; FERRUGINOUS DUCK, WHITE HEADED DUCK, NORTHERN PINTAIL, Greater Flamingo and all three grebes. Waders included: Black-tailed Godwit, Common Snipe, Little Stint, common and Green Sandpiper, Cirlew Sandpiper, Black-winged Stint and Little Ringed Plover. A perched Marsh Harrier proved popular and we also had a possible Peregrine whizz by.
Lastly we drove round to the famous Fuente de Piedra laguna which was almost completely dry, we did manage a couple of goodies along the way, Stone Curlew and Eurasian Hoopoe and we added Zitting Cisticola on the way back.
We did stop at the Teba raptor view point and watch a few Griffon Vultures and not much else, so we went on home.
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