Calblanque, Los Belones - 13th December 2012

As I had the afternoon free, I decided to go over to Calblanque, which is one of the only beach areas close to where I live which is not built on, although it is used by thousands of people in the summer.  At this time of year, there is hardly anyone about - normally just the occasional dog-walker and shepherd with his flock of sheep.

Starting off at 2-30pm, I drove over to one of the beach areas, and had a walk through the arbetorum that has been planted there.  Parking up I had 3 Common Buzzards hunting together, and two of them started a short display, one flying up quite high then pulling in its wings and zooming down in Peregrine form to the other bird.  This in its turn turned upside down and they did some talon grappling, tumbling down together behind a hill where I lost them to sight.

 One of the three Common Buzzards seen hunting

In the arbetorum itself there weren't many birds, a few Greenfinches and Serins, the Serins singing, but I did see a group of Long-tailed Tits and I thought I heard a crest.  By waiting and searching through the L.T.Tits, I eventually saw the crest - in actual fact there were two, and they were Firecrest.  The cold seems to make them less wary as I managed to get quite close to both a Firecrest and Long-tailed Tit to get a couple of photos.

 Although the habitat is ideal, I very rarely see Firecrest here, so was please to come across a pair

 

 'I can see you' - I think this Long-tailed Tit thought it was invisible

Once the tit flock had moved on, I drove over to the old disused salinas at Rasall to have a look for colour ringed Audouins Gulls.  There were 53 Audouins there and I was able to read 3 rings, but the biggest surprise was an adult Common Gull amongst the Audouins - a species seen very sparsely but annually here.

Scanning through the Audouins Gulls for rings, I came across this superb adult Common Gull

In the general area there seemed to be a lot of finches flying around in small groups of 30 - 50 birds, mainly Greenfinches, Serins, Linnets and Goldfinches.  I kept my eyes open looking around this area, as last weekend a Pin-tailed Sandgrouse had been seen here - the first one I've ever heard of in Murcia away from their Yecla stronghold, about 200 km. away.

After checking out the gulls, I took a walk to the end of Calblanque, climbing the shale hill at the eastern end with the forlorn hope of maybe finding Alpine Accentor.  I had no luck with this, but did see a Black Wheatear in its usual spot at the end of the day, finishing at 5-30pm.

And to end the day, a nice Black Wheatear

 

Birds seen and/or heard:

Kestrel; Southern Grey Shrike; White Wagtail; Crested Lark; Black Redstart; Dartford Warbler; House Sparrow; Common Buzzard; Greenfinch; Goldfinch; Linnet; Chaffinch; Serin; Long-tailed Tit; Firecrest; Stonechat; Great Tit; Meadow Pipit; Greater Flamingo; Red-legged Partridge; Yellow-legged Gull; Audouin's Gull; Common Gull; Greenshank; Redshank; Black Wheatear.