Saturday, 16th June 2012 – Campo de Cartagena

Weather: Sky clear, no wind, temp. 18 – 28ºC.  08:50 – 11:45.

Today several local birdwatchers, myself included, took part in a census around the ‘campo de Cartagena’ (agricultural fields around El Algar, La Palma, La Puebla and Torre Pacheco).  The reason for the census was to see if we could find any new colonies of Collared Pratincoles.  There were 7 groups of us in the field, but when we joined up again after the census, no new colony had been found.

That doesn’t mean that the morning was wasted – it was good to go round some of the inland areas, seeing good numbers of Stone Curlews, Short-toed and Crested Larks, Black-winged Stilts around almost all of the farm reservoirs, Iberian Wagtails, hundreds of Swifts and Pallid Swifts feeding over the fields, Turtle Doves and a few Bee-eaters on overhead cables and Gull-billed Terns searching for insects, and I did see some Collared Pratincoles, and hear a single Quail.

 Probably the commonest bird seen on the ploughed fields, Short-toed Lark

I used to think that the Redshank was the noisiest wader you could see, until I came to Spain - the Black Winged Stilt can really give you a headache if you get too close!

Species seen/heard

Quail (Coturnix coturnix)

Stone Curlew (Burhinus oedicnemus)

Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus)

Little Ringed Plover (Charadrius dubius)

Collared Pratincole (Glareola pratincola)

Gull-billed Tern (Sterna nilotica)

Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur)

Bee-eater (Merops apiaster)

Hoopoe (Upupa epops)

Swift (Apus apus)

Pallid Swift (Apus pallidus)

Crested Lark (Galerida cristata)

Short-toed Lark (Calandrella rufescens)

Iberian Wagtail (Motacilla flava iberiae)

Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis)

Spotless Starling (Sturnus unicolor)

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Serin (Serinus serinus)

Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)

Linnet (Carduelis cannabina)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Corn Bunting (Miliaria calandra)