Wednesday 10th October - San Javier and San Pedro salinas

I hadn't intended doing any birdwatching today, but after seeing a large pale falcon fly over my office in Los Belones (unidentified), and as I had to go to San Pedro del Pinatar in the afternoon, I thought I'd call in en-route to a few places to see if there was anything new about.

My first port of call was the disused sewage farm (EDAR) at El Algar.  One of the first birds I saw here was a pale phase Booted Eagle circling around, which gradually moved off south.  The lagoons themselves had some water in after the recent rains, and although I was only looking from the gates of the EDAR, I ould see that there were a couple of Little Ringed Plovers, a single Green Sandpiper and 5 Wood Sandpipers there.  On the way out there were masses of Collared Doves on the wires (I estimated around 250) with a single juvenile Turtle Dove amongst them.

I carried on up the coast to the farm reservoirs at San Javier, basically to see if the Black Tern I had seen last week was still about, but there was no sign of it.  Here birds of interest were a group of 9 Swallows, plus 4 Shovelers still in eclipse plumage in one of the reservoirs.

I moved on to San Pedro, and walked partway down 'La Mota' which divides the Mar Menor from the salinas, but only going as far as the second lagoon.  There were still a fair few waders about, but nowhere near as many as last week.  However, I don't know if the heat (around 30ºC) of the last few days has messed with some birds behaviour, but I did see a male Black Winged Stilt attacking another Black Winged Stilt, jumping on its back and holding it underwater for a few seconds - presumably because it considered it a rival.

Sequence of Black Winged Stilts fighting

 

Other birds seen here were a Turnstone, 12 Sanderling, 18 Little Stints, 1 Common Redshank, 6 Little Egrets, 20+ Slender-billed Gulls and a Kingfisher.

Little Stint

 

 A very confiding (or hungry) Sanderling

 One of the Little Egrets seen

Finally, I had a look along the road to the port in the salinas themselves.  Here there was a good group of 25 Black-tailed Godwits, 9 Spotted Redshanks, 2 Common Redshanks, 6 Black WInged Stilts, 50+ Avocets, c30 Black Necked Grebes, a single juvenile Great Crested Grebe, 15 Shelduck, 200+ Greater Flamingos,  a group of 20+ Little Stints, 2 Ruff (a Ruff and a Reeve) and another Kingfisher.

 The juvenile Great Crested Grebe

 

 One of the Avocets seen

 Three of the Black Tailed Godwits trying to creep off

 The male and female Ruff / Reeve

 One of the Spotted Redshanks seen - don't worry, it's not in a cage!

 Record shot of the Kingfisher

 Another of the Black-tailed Godwits seen

A juvenile Common Redshank

And this afternoon, off to Tarifa (Andalucia) to try and catch up with the birds there that I didn't see last week!