A couple of short entries, and no photos I'm afraid. I'll try to make up for it in my next entry.
1st
September, Cabo de Palos (RAM census) and Marchamalo salinas
Back to
normality today, doing the usual local areas.
I got to the seawatch site late and only managed an hour of the RAM
census till it finished (at 10:30).
There was very little movement on the sea, and I only had around 25
Cory’s Shearwaters (mainly heading north) and a single Sandwich Tern (south),
but the others who had got there earlier had seen Common Scoter, very unusual
for here.
After the
census we had a quick look around the lighthouse garden, but again things were
very quiet. The only birds of note were a single Southern Grey Shrike, and a
Red-rumped Swallow.
After
breakfast on my way back home, I called into the Marchamalo Salinas, where I
had 12 Greater Flamingo, a group of 13 Little Egrets, 6 Grey Herons, 38
Black-headed, 6 Slender-billed and a single Mediterranean Gull (adult in winter
plumage), 15 Sandwich, 4 Common and a single
Little Tern. Waders were noticeable by
their total absence. Around at the other
end of the Salinas
(in Playa Paraiso), again there was very little – a large group of around 300
Yellow-legged with 6 Audouins Gulls, being the only birds seen.
Bird species seen
Cory’s
Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea)
Little Egret (Egretta
garzetta)
Grey
Heron (Ardea cinerea)
Kestrel
(Falco tinnunculus)
Black-headed
Gull (Larus ridibundus)
Slender-billed
Gull (Larus genei)
Mediterranean
Gull (Larus melanocephalus)
Audouin’s
Gull (Larus audouinii)
Yellow-legged
Gull (Larus cachinnans)
Sandwich
Tern (Sterna sanvicensis)
Common
Tern (Sterna hirundo)
Little
Tern (Sterna albifrons)
Southern
Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis)
Red-rumped
Swallow (Hirundo daurica)
Blackbird
(Turdus merula)
Sardinian
Warbler (Sylvia melsanocephala)
House
Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
2nd
September, South and West of the Mar Menor
I paid a
late visit to various locations around the Mar Menor, just to check if there
was anything new since my last visit prior to my holiday. I started at the sailing club (Club Nautico)
in Los Urrutias, but it was very quiet here – the only birds seen being a
single Sandwich Tern and single Slender-billed Gull.
My next
stop was the old sewage farm (EDAR) at El Algar. Here there was just a single pool with
‘water’ visible from the gates, but it had no birds on it. However, on overhead wires nearby I counted
18 Turtle Doves and 16 Collared Doves and a Kestrel, and on nearby fields, 8
Red-legged Partridge and 6 Stone Curlews.
I then went
on to the ‘Rambla de Albujon’, a stream that picks up the overflow from
surrounding fields and eventually dumps the water into the Mar Menor. It is the nearest thing we have locally to a
river, and never goes dry. It is
normally a large reedbed, but over the last few weeks, the reeds have had their
annual cut (just leaving a few ‘stands’ of reeds for wildlife), and the rambla
is pretty much bald!
Walking up
the wall of the rambla, I had a single Little Ringed Plover and Green
Sandpiper, and surprisingly, a male Little Bittern flying from one stand of
reeds to the next. Walking back along
the wall, the only birds seen were a group of 6 Cattle Egret flying down the
rambla, then over to the Mar Menor.
Presumably they were on their way to roost on one of the islands in the
Mar Menor.
My final
stop at dusk was at the ‘Arenal’ (sand areas) of Los Nietos. I stopped here to see if the roost of ‘flava’
Wagtails had built up yet, as last year we had a go at ringing the roost, and
managed to catch over 100 wagtails one night (plus Bluethroat, Fan-tailed
Warbler, Reed Warbler and Whinchat). The
roost WAS building up, with around 300 ‘flava’ Wagtails seen just before it got
dark (the majority of which, as far as I could see, of the subspecies
‘iberiae), plus as a bonus, a Red-necked Nightjar was hunting around the reeds.
Bird species seen
Cattle Egret (Bubulcus
ibis)
Little
Bittern (Ixobrychus minutus)
Kestrel
(Falco tinnunculus)
Stone
Curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)
Little
Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius)
Green
Sandpiper (Tringa ochropus)
Slender-billed
Gull (Larus genei)
Sandwich
Tern (Sterna sanvicensis)
Collared
Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)
Turtle
Dove (Streptopelia turtur)
Red-necked
Nightjar (Caprimulgus ruficollis)
Iberian
Wagtail (Motacilla flava iberiae)
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