Monday 16 April 2012

Sunday, 15th April 2012



Mar Menor west
Weather: 5-7/8 cloud cover & distant showers, wind NW F3-6, temp. 16ºC.  17:20 – 17:50.

After about 24 hours of high (not far off gale force) north-westerly winds, the wind finally seemed to drop, so I decided to go out and have a look around.  As it was still a bit windy, I thought I’d look for waders rather than passerines, checking out the west side of the Mar Menor.  My first stop was the sailing club at Los Urrutias, normally a good wader spot if there’re any around, but on arrival there all I saw was a Great White Egret, Little Egret and a single Greenshank.  As there were no people around, these birds were at least fairly close to the beach.  Apart from these, the only other birds around were a couple of Sandwich Terns and Yellow-legged Gulls, and a continual stream of Swifts (I’m not sure if there were any Pallids amongst them, but all the ones I could i.d. were Commons).

One of only 3 species of birds seen, Little Egret
 
And another, this Great White Egret, having trouble swallowing a fish it'd just caught

And the third, a Greenshank
I went from there about 6 km along the road to the desembocadura of the rambla de Albujon.  Here I had a group of 8 Cattle Egret fly out north against the wind (which had by now got back up again), and a single Little Egret.  Also flying along the beach an adult Audouin’s Gull.  Looking in the distance I could see that there were storms approaching, and the wind had got back up again, so I decided to beat a retreat and go back home!

 No birds to photograph, so I took a shot of this weather front coming over

 While over La Manga, the showers had started

Species seen
Great White Egret (casmerodius albus)
Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)
Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis)
Greenshank (Tringa nebularia)
Yellow Legged Gull (Larus michahellis)
Audouin’s Gull (Larus audouinii)
Sandwich Tern (Sterna sandvicensis)
Swift (Apus apus)

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