A few days in southern Spain was a welcome respite from what's been a patch slog this spring, with a typically fantastic cast of birds. In the company of David, Matt, Robin and Wes we tallied up 158 species, including some strong raptor migration over the Straits - over 3000 birds, with 11 species involved.
I could wax lyrical about the trip and area, but instead I'll run through it chronologically via some photos below.
Our first full day saw us head to the east side of the Rio Guadalquivir, and the fringes of the simply epic Donana National Park, where we focused our attention on the saltpans, rice fields and pools around Bonanza.
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| Great Reed Warbler, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018 |
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| Greater Flamingos, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018 |
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| Western Bonelli's Warbler, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018. |
Bonanza pools are a collection of rather unimpressive looking ponds, next to a factory and fly-tipping site. Despite this, the first (and largest) pool had the below three species, including 24
White-headed Ducks. Also present was a
Great Reed Warbler and several
Red-crested Pochards.
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| White-headed Duck, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018. |
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| Black-crowed Night-Heron, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018. |
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| Western (Purple) Swamphen, Bonanza Pools, 22/4/2018. |
The saltpans held loads of
Greater Flamingoes, waders
and gulls (mainly
Slender-billed).
Little and
Caspian Terns were knocking about too. We also heard our only
Western Olivaceous Warbler of the trip here, and plenty of raptors were overhead
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| Greater Flamingoes and Slender-billed Gulls, Bonanza Saltpans, 22/4/2018. |
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| Kentish Plover keeping an eye on a passing Booted Eagle, Bonanza Saltpans, 22/4/2018. |
We then moved up towards Los Portugueses Saltpans/Guadalquivir estuary marshes, passing a fence had a
Western Black-eared Wheatear,
Northern Wheatear,
Woodchat Shrike,
Whinchat and
Common Cuckoo on it.
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| Western Black-eared and Northern Wheatears, Guadalquivir marshes, 22/4/2018. |
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| Western Cattle Egret, Guadalquivir marshes, 22/4/2018. |
Personally, the main target at Los Portugueses Saltpans/Guadalquivir marshes was
Marbled Duck. Not only a lifer for me, this is a species I've always wanted to see in the wild, ever since visiting the 'Iraqi Wetland' site at Arundel WWT as a kid. We saw 5+ birds, but sadly they were all either distant or elusive. The most obvious species here was
Western Yellow Wagtail - on the trip we recorded 3 subspecies,
flava,
iberiae and, notably,
feldegg.
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| Marbled Duck, Guadalqivir marshes, 22/4/2018. |
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| Western Yellow Wagtail (flava), Guadalquivir marshes, 22/4/2018. |
Having enjoyed an extremely productive time around Donana, we headed back south and inland to an area of open farmland near Benalup. This type of habitat is perhaps by favourite - loads of vistas, big open spaces and, as we were in Spain, birds to go with it. The main target was
Little Bustard, which was eventually found after a bit of searching. In fact, a male unusually decided to display out in the open, which allowed for decent scope views. A male
Montagu's Harrier passed over at one point, and both species (which are easily two of my favourites) were briefly viewable together in binoculars
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| Displaying Little Bustard, near Benalup, 22/4/2018. |
To end the day we visited the similar habitat (slightly more hilly) near Cantarranas, where
Black-winged Kite was eventually seen, close to dusk.
Calandra Larks and a
Melodious Warbler were also seen here.
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| Calandra Lark, near Cantarranas, 22/4/2018. |
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| Black-winged Kite, near Cantarras, 22/4/2018. |
Day three was raptor migration watching, and we had the fortune of being able to do it from our accommodation garden! In just over 3 hours we had a staggering 375
Booted Eagles, 222
Griffon Vultures, 131
Black Kites, 20
Egyptian Vultures, 32
European Honey-buzzards, 3
Short-toed Eagles, 2
Western Ospreys, 1
Western Marsh Harrier, 1
Montagu's Harrier, 1
Common Buzzard, 1
Common Kestrel and 5
Eurasian Sparrowhawks!
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| Pale-morph Booted Eagle, El Curaton, 23/4/2018. |
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| Egyptian Vulture, El Curaton, 23/4/2018. |
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| Griffon Vulture, El Curaton, 23/4/2018. |
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| European Honey-buzzard, El Curaton, 23/4/2018. |
Later in the day we visited the introduced
Northern Bald Ibis colony near La Barca de Vejer. After this, we headed up to neighbouring Vejer. This attractive town up on a hill holds a colony of
Lesser Kestrels, which we watched from a car park that looked out west towards the coast.
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| Northern Bald Ibis, La Barca de Vejer, 23/4/2018. |
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| Lesser Kestrel, Vejer, 23/4/2018. |
To end the day we visited Bolonia, famous for hosting Europe's first breeding White-rumped Swifts. We were too early in the year for these, but did manage to see a few
Blue Rock Thrushes, some closeup
Griffon Vultures, a
Subalpine Warbler and, best of all, a distant
Iberian Green Woodpecker (we heard 3+ in total).
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| Blue Rock Thrush, Bolonia, 23/4/2018. |
The final day was again spent watching the raptors cross the strait, and from the beach near Tarifa we counted a crazy 2600+
Black Kites.
Crested Larks,
Northern Wheatears and a
Short-toed Treecreeper were recorded near our watch point, and several
Black Storks flew over too.
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| Crested Lark, Tarifa beach, 24/4/2018. |
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| Black Kite, Tarifa beach, 24/4/2018. |
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| Northern Wheatear, Tarifa beach, 24/4/2018. |
On our way to the airport we stopped off in the Grazalema nation park, where we saw some final target species, including Rock Bunting and Black Wheatear. The comfortable highlight, however, was the remarkable discovery of a Bonelli's Eagle on the nest, complete with chicks. A great end to the trip.
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| Bonelli's Eagle, Grazalema national park, 24/4/2018. |
