Cabo de Palos
lighthouse garden, afternoon session.
Weather: Sky 7/8 cloud spitting rain,
wind SW F2, temp. 20ºC. 14:10 – 17:00.
Apologies
for the delay in writing this entry – as you can imagine it’s been a busy time
over the last few days, and I always prefer to be out in the field rather than
in front of a computer screen!
As I
mentioned before, I couldn’t resist coming back to the lighthouse garden,
mainly because of the variety of birds that were about. And I was quite amazed by the change of birds
that had happened in just a few hours.
For example, whereas in the morning the majority of ‘sylvia’ warblers
had been Blackcaps (and mainly males at that), now there were relatively few Blackcaps,
but the place seemed to be overrun by Common Whitethroats. Also, there were now both Spotted and Pied
Flycatchers about. (In fact I phoned
Mark to see if he’d seen them, and he said that the Pied Flycatchers suddenly
appeared about half an hour after I’d left this morning, (female birds), and
then later male Pied Flycatchers and Spotted Flycatchers showed up). He also said that he’d seen another group of
Ortolan Buntings, and sure enough, when I got round to the rocky area at the
base of the lighthouse, I had a group of about 25 (they’re very difficult to
count accurately, a bit like Wheatears they flit around all over the place). Redstarts
had also obviously been coming in strongly, as I saw about 30 of these, mainly
males. Other birds of note were a female Golden Oriole, 2 Bee-eaters flying
over, a Garden Warbler and the first Black Redstart for a few days (a BLACK
Black Redstart, a proper male).
One of the 3 Spotted Flycatchers seen
Female Pied Flycatcher
And a male
And another
Out on the rocky point, a Northern Wheatear
One of the flock of about 25 Ortolan Buntings seen
And another
Species seen/heard (and numbers)
Kestrel
(Falco tinnunculus) - 1
Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) - 1
Yellow
Legged Gull (Larus michahellis) – c20
Bee-eater (Merops apiaster) - 2
Hoopoe (Upupa epops) - 4
Crested Lark (Galerida
cristata) - 2
Meadow Pipit (Anthus pratensis) - 1
Blackbird (Turdus merula) - 12
Golden Oriole (Oriolus oriolus) – 1
Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) - 5
Common Redstart (Phoenicurus phoenicurus) – c 30
Black Redstart (Phoenicurus uchrurus) - 1
Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) – 5
Common Whitethroat (Sylvia communis) – 70+
Garden Warbler (Sylvia borin) - 1
Subalpine Warbler (Sylvia cantillans) – 9
Blackcap
(Sylvia atricapilla) - 12
Sardinian
Warbler (Sylvia melanocephala) - 8
Willow/Chiff
(Phylloscopus trochilus/collybita) c 50
Pied Flycatcher – (Ficedula hypoleuca) - 7
Spotted Flycatcher
– (Muscicapa striata) - 3
Woodchat Shrike (Lanius senator) - 4
Ortolan Bunting (Emberiza
hortulana) – c 25
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