Sierra Espuña and the Saladares del Guadalentín

Hi all,

 

Last Thursday (12th March), with superb weather for photography, I decided to call into the ‘Pozos de la Nieve de Murcia’ (Murcia Snow Pits) in Sierra Espuña (for further details see my post of the 13th February 2014).  My last visit there back in January wasn’t too successful, with it being very cold, and there being a strong northerly wind blowing, and the pools there had run dry so there was no water for the birds to drink.  So although there has been some snow since then, it was with bated breath that I approached the ‘pozos’.  On my way up to them, there was plenty of birdsong around, mainly of Coal Tits singing, but I also picked out the high pitched song of a Firecrest.  The song, quite similar to that of a Goldcrest although slightly stronger, is still a fairly quiet one, and so it defies the imagination as to how the male manages to pull in a female.

 Coal Tit - one of many heard singing

 Firecrest - quietly singing away ...

 ... and waiting for a mate

On reaching the ‘pozos’ I found my fears about possible lack of water to be unfounded – there wasn’t a lot but enough water below the hawthorn bush so that the birds perch in it before dropping down to the ground for a drink and bath.  So positioning myself with the sun directly behind me, I just had to wait to see the birds.  I sat there for a couple of hours and built up quite a list of birds that came down to drink.  It was impossible to photograph all of them as once they get into the bush, they are almost lost to view.   The species that came down were Blackbird, Redwing, Ring Ouzel (at least 25 of these still around), Black Redstart (it must have been a day of passage for these as I saw at least 15 of these), a couple of Blackcaps, Crested Tit, Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Linnet, Chaffinch, Cirl Bunting and Rock Bunting. 

 One of the commonest birds seen during the morning - Black Redstart ...

 ... and the other common bird, Ring Ouzel

 

 Another Ring Ouzel

 Female Black Redstart

 One of the alpine 'alpestris' sub-species

 Watching me watching the birds, a Barbary Sheep (Ammotragus lervia) or Arrui

 Regularly flying over, (Red-billed) Chough

 Male Ring Ouzel in lookout mode

 Female Ring Ouzel ...

 ... and another

Flying over on several occasions were Chough (of the ‘Red-billed’ variety), a couple of Ravens and Carrion Crows and a single Peregrine shot through with some avian prey. Beginning to get a bit stiff, I left the ‘pozos’ at about 1-30pm and headed back to my car for a sandwich lunch.  A perfect time made all the better by the lack of people on a bright sunny and warm morning.

And on my way back it was quiet and windless enough that I heard a Crossbill calling and then could hear another one as it was munching its way through a pine cone, and found a third in another nearby tree – the full family, male, female and juvenile.

 

The Crossbill family - ma ...

 

... pa ...

 and baby

It was as I was having my lunch in the car that I realised that I hadn’t seen any Short-toed Treecreepers yet this year, and so instead of taking my usual route out of the Espuña reserve (via Aledo), I took the other route out, passing the ‘Centro de Visitantes Ricardo Codorniu’.  It is close to this visitors centre that I know of some sites for the Treecreepers, so I stopped here for a while, and heard and saw a minimum of three of these little delights singing and running up the tree trunks.

 Short-toed Treecreeper

As it was still quite early when I left Espuña, I decided to make a short call into the ‘saladares del Guadalentín’ on my way home.  I wasn’t expecting to see much, as I’ve realised from previous visits that the afternoon can be pretty quiet here, but I did have a couple of Kestrels (one of which could easily have been a Lesser Kestrel, but I couldn’t get close enough to confirm i.d.),  three Marsh Harriers, a Raven, my first Great Spotted Cuckoo of the year, and on the ground various Stone Curlews, Red-legged Partridges and my first Lesser Short-toed Larks of the year (surprising this considering they are all year round residents).

 Marsh Harrier

 Great Spotted Cuckoo

 Great Spotted Cuckoo

 Displaying (and fighting) Stone Curlews

And that was it for the day – a relaxing day out inland from the coast.

Ciauu

Out and About, and Fuerteventura

Hi all,

Having written nothing in my blog for a while, I thought it was about time I did, even if only to let you all know I'm alive and kicking!

One of the reasons has been because birding has been pretty quiet of late - with high north / north-westerly winds blowing for almost a month now, very little has been seen.

I have however been out locally on the odd occasion when the wind has dropped, mainly just around the Mar Menor, but also the lighthouse gardens at Cabo de Palos - preparing myself for the new season.

On the afternoon of Monday 16th February I called in at Cala Reona (Cabo de Palos), as it was the only place locally out of the wind.  I was hoping to see some passerines, but found none at all - but I did come across an adult Gannet that was flying in circles within the bay and eventually launched down into the water.  Due to the waves (even there!), I couldn't see if it caught anything but presume it did as it stayed on the water cleaning itself and slowly drifted out of the bay.  At the same time a breeding plumaged adult Cormorant dropped in.

 Gannet that decided Cala Flores was a good place to fish ...

 ... to be joined later by an adult breeding plumaged Cormorant ...

... landing tail first on the water

At the lighthouse on Saturday the 21st February, once again the very pale dove was to be seen in the carpark - the one that I think may well be a Barbary Dove, but I still have to hear it call to be able to confirm identification.

 The probable Barbary Dove that appears to have spent the winter at the lighthouse area at Cabo de Palos

The same morning off the lighthouse rocks was a flock of at least 2,000 Balearic Shearwaters feeding, moving around in smallgroups and sometimes being harassed by a couple of Great Skuas.  It's quite a while since I've seen so many more or less stationary off the point.

Also there, a weak movement of Gannets (mainly adults) south, a few Audouin's Gulls and 4 adult breeding plumaged Mediterranean Gulls north.

In the afternoon, a visit to the sailing club at Los Urrutias produced a few Black-headed (coming into breeding plumage) and Slender-billed Gulls, plus a single Little Egret, the latter looking very smart in their breeding attire.

 Adult Slender-billed and Black-headed Gulls

 Very smart looking breeding plumaged adult Little Egret

On Sunday, 22nd February, on an afternoon visit to the Mar Menor at Punta Brava (just west of Los Urrutias), I saw that the recent winds had formed a 'weedbank' of seaweed in a couple of areas just off the beach, and the birds had taken no time at all in finding them.  More than 70 Black-headed Gulls plus more than 20 Slender-billed Gulls, some looking respendant in their pink breeding plumage.  Waders were to be found as well, with 25 Turnstones, 4 Ruff, 7 Ringed Plovers and a single Oystercatcher, the first I've seen this year.

 At Punta Brava, plenty of gulls, Turnstones, Ruff and a single Oystercatcher

At the beginning of the month (February), I had twelve days outside of the Iberian peninsula, spending a week on the Canary Island of Fuerteventura, and a few days back in the UK.  The Fuerteventura visit was an actual holiday and my first ever visit to the Canary Islands.  I have written a separate trip report about my visit, which can be seen using the following link (to access, just click the link - if that doesn't work, you will need to copy and paste the link into your browser):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8jcbmkcesryjnm7/Fuerteventura%20Trip%20Report.pdf?dl=0

And if you want to see some of the video footage I took of one of the island's specialities, use the following link:

Houbara Bustards, Fuerteventura, 3rd / 4th February 2015

Ring-necked Duck - third time lucky!

Hi all!

Another post so soon after the last you may be thinking - but it's only to let you know of another couple of visits to the PN of El Hondo, Elche (Alicante).

If you remember, in my last post I mentioned about being unable to get into the first hide on the south side of the reserve, due to the access being flooded and us not having wellies.  Well one of the reasons for wanting to go into the hide is that it's from there that amongst all the other ducks, a male Ring-necked Duck (an American vagrant) has been seen lately.

Well the 'twitcher' inside me got the better of me, and so on Wednesday afternoon, I made my way back up to El Hondo, this time with wellies in the boot of the car!  Taking much the same route as we had on Saturday morning, but with no-where near the number or quality of birds, I got to the hide on a windy afternoon, got the 'scope out and scanned through the ducks.  And - NOTHING!!

A good group of Pochard and White-headed Ducks, a few Shoveler, Black Necked Grebes, Little Grebes, 14 Tufted Ducks of which three were males, but no sign of the Ring-necked!  As I'd left my car, talking to some people who'd been in the hide for a while I was told that it hadn't been seen all afternoon and this was confirmed by some Dutch birders in the hide when I got there.

Feeling SLIGHTLY disappointed (using ironic english understatement here), I stayed till it was almost dark, watching numerous Marsh Harriers zooming around over the reeds, and then I made my way back down to Cartagena.

The forecast for the next few days was for overcast, cold and windy weather, so when I got up the next day and saw that there were blue skies and not much wind, (yes, OK, it WAS cold), I was tempted to have another go.

Well I'm easily tempted when it comes to birding, so 10 o'clock saw me setting off again, arriving at 11:15.  I went straight to the first hide, and could immediately see that there were many more ducks than the previous day.  The wind started to get up, and I got worried that this might make them hide in the reeds, but no, they stayed out (although tucked in on the other side of the lagoon at the base of the reeds), and scanning through them, yes, that EUREKA moment - one of the male 'Tufted's' had pale grey flanks with a contrasting white crescent at the front - not a Tufted at all but the Ring-necked Duck - the first one I've ever seen in Spain and my first since January 1978!  I watched it on and off for about an hour and a half, trying to take photos and video, but it kept itself in with the other ducks a long way off, asleep for most of the time, so my only photos and video are record photos.

 Some of the ducks, with the Ring-necked centre with its back to the camera ...

... and if you´ve got a minute, you can play 'spot the Ring-necked' in the video

One of the few birds that came over to my side of the lake - Little Grebe

As I was up there, and now with the pressure off, I had a quick look round the rest of the reserve, but all was much as on Saturday, and today there was heavy machinery working around the visitors centre, so not much chance of seeing anything different, although the Bluethroat that kept a few feet ahead of me when I walked back to my car from the south hide was nice.

The Bluethroat that was hopping in and out of the hedgerow ahead of me

From the visitors centre pool, three birds of the same family - Gallinule, Moorhen and Coot

And so I was just in time to meet up with some friends for a 'meal of the day' in a Chinese restaurant, and what better to have on a cold day like that than 'pato en salsa picante' - duck in a hot sauce!

Good birding,

Richard

Trip to ‘El Hondo’, Saturday 17th January 2015

It’s been a while since I wrote an entry in the blog, due to being in the UK over Christmas and the New Year, and since returning being busy doing various Winter Bird censuses, but on Saturday (17^th January) I took a break from these and went with fellow birdwatcher Mick Brewer to the ‘El Hondo/Fondo’ nature reserve in Elche, Alicante.

Arriving there at just after 9am, instead of doing our normal route starting from the closed Information Centre, we started from the south side of the reserve.  Approaching from the town of Dolores, we noticed that several of the fields at the side of the road were flooded – a good sign – and as driving along we noticed a small group of Common Cranes flying in the distance.   

We worked out roughly where they were, and deviated from our route to look for them.  The closer we got, the more Cranes we saw flying, and eventually checking out the small fields at either side of the road, found where they had landed.  They were at the end of a grassy field directly off the main Dolores/Elche road and we stopped to view them for a while.  In total there were 45 of them, with another dropping in as we left.  It was great to be able to see them feeding, with a little bit of macho display by some of them, and we watched them tranquilly feeding for about 15 minutes.

Photos and video of the Common Cranes seen from the side of the road

Getting back on our route towards the south gate (Vistabella area) of the reserve, as we drove along I noticed a load of black ‘dots’ in a field.  My first thought was of a flooded field full of Coots, but as we got closer it suddenly clicked – they weren’t Coots, but Glossy Ibises!  We approached and managed to pull off of the road (or racetrack judging by some of the cars going by!), and got our scopes out and onto the birds.  We didn’t get a chance to count them accurately, but I would estimate around 130 of them.

 Glossy Ibises in flight, to and fro to the flooded field

While watching them Mick got onto some waders in the same field, and at the same time I had subconsciously registered a wader calling that didn’t seem familiar.  Getting the ‘scopes onto the waders, one literally stood out – there were three Wood Sandpipers, and another, taller bird, shank-like which was making the calls. We were looking almost into the sun, but could see it was skinny with a greyish body with a paler grey almost unnoticeable front to the chest and white underneath, eyestripe, longer (than the Wood Sandpipers) fine bill, brighter longer legs (which due to the early morning light did actually look more orange than yellow).  I knew that there had been a Lesser Yellowlegs about recently but thought that it had gone, but no, here it was in front of us!

 The Glossy Ibises forming an honour guard to the Lesser Yellowlegs!

We watched it for a few minutes, and then the whole flock of Ibises took off, and the waders with them.  We didn’t see where the waders went, but they soon came back together with a few of the Ibises and continued feeding on the same flooded field.  We watched them for a while longer, and then the 3 Wood Sandpipers and Yellowlegs suddenly flew up an off, and we lost them to view to the south east.

Photos and short video of the Lesser Yellowlegs with Glossy Ibises ...
(in the first part of the video you can hear the 'Legs calling)

... and one of the Wood Sandpipers that were accompanying the Lesser 'Legs 

We decided that this was a good time to continue on to the hides at the south side of the reserve, so parking up we walked along the ditch wall to the hides.  Here we had our first problem of the day – the access to the first hide was flooded – not too much, but we didn’t have wellies with us and we would have got wet feet if we’d tried to cross to the hide.  We decided to give the hide a miss (very frustrating, especially considering I knew a male Ring-necked Duck had been seen from there a couple of days earlier, and in fact it was seen and photographed again the following day).  We went onto the second hide, which any of you who know the area know that to get to, you have to walk along a long gangplank only 3 planks wide over open water – not easy for me – but we got to the hide eventually! And from there, apart from a distant Purple Gallinule in the reeds and a small group of White-headed Ducks on the way out, NOTHING!  To be fair, there was shooting going on over to the right of us, so I presume all the ducks were at the left end of the lagoon (and visible from the first hide!), but staying there a while and seeing next to nothing, we decided to cut our losses and head back.

 Some of the other birds seen on our travels - Green Sandpiper, Black-necked Grebe and Grey Heron

By now, hunger pangs were kicking in, so we decided to go round to the Information Centre where there is a small pool and picnic area, and have an early lunch.  We noticed that a lot of work has been going on at the Information Centre, and the small pool almost devoid of reeds – a few stands had been left, but the banks were totally clear.  This obviously has to be done every so often so that the pool doesn’t end up full of reeds, but it was a bit of a shock to the system to see it like this.  However, it made finding the Purple Gallinues and Crested Coots that much easier, and we saw five of the former and two of the latter, plus Common Coots, Moorhens and a single Little Grebe.

After our sandwiches, we walked around the wooden trail around the Centre, and then on to the two ‘new’ hides which are always worth a look at.  But this time they weren’t – from the one facing west we saw absolutely nothing in the lake (although a pair of Mallard DID fly over!) and from the other one someone was actually in the water in front of the hide taking samples, so there were no birds there either!  On the way to the hides though, we did have a single pale morph Booted Eagle and several Marsh Harriers.

We decided to cut our losses, and head on back south, as we had time for a quick visit to the Salinas at San Pedro on the way home.  However, as Mick had never been there before, I suggested a look at the ‘desembocadura’ of the river Segura at Guardamar.  It’s somewhere I occasionally used to see seaducks (Eiders and Scoters) in the winter although I’d not been there for years.

It took a while to get there since all the roads have changed since my last visit, but eventually we left the car in the parking area by the dunes, we went off to explore.  Where the Segura drains into the sea, there were single adult Lesser Black-backed Gull and Mediterranean Gull, a Kingfisher, Grey Heron and a few other Yellow-legged Gulls, and out to sea a few adult Gannets, but no sign of any seaducks, so we turned tail and returned to the car, having been away from it about 20 minutes.

 A nice close Kingfisher at Guardamar del Segura

We carried on south and paid a very rapid visit to San Pedro Salinas, the only birds of note being a couple of Black-tailed Godwits as we entered  - we drove down to the beach to once again look for seaduck, but no luck.  And then, home.

It was only when we got to my house that we realized that things were missing from the car – our backpacks and their contents – we’d been robbed when we left the car at the dunes at Guardamar! I’m just SO please that we’d taken all our optics with us, although Mick did lose an iPod, camera and digiscoping attachment, and I an iPod and base unit AND my last sandwich!

So we then spent 2 hours at the Guardia Civil station at Cabo de Palos making a police report.   

I’ve subsequently found out that Guardamar beach is infamous for car robberies so I don’t think I’ll be back there for quite a while!

Happy birding,

Richard