Spain - El Torcel, El Chorro and Fuente de Piedra

September 14th



With the chaps also staying out in Spain close by at the same time, Mart, Paul and Lee, we had arranged a day out birding on the itinerary above, Torcel, Chorro and Fuente De Piedra visiting in that order.

They picked me up pre-dawn, the idea being to get there before the crowds and have a good walk round. Having previously visited here a couple of times, I knew it held some good birds and Spanish specialities.

Around an hour driving from La Cala, we arrived at dawn, however we couldn’t see a thing as we hit cloud/fog on the way up the mountains. Black Redstarts were present in the Car Park near the centre, but it soon became clear that it was not going to clear.

Driving back down the mountain eventually produced visibility and we started to pick up birds, all a bit distant but good to see the following.

Black Wheatear, 2 Rock Bunting, 3 Rock Sparrows, Blue Rock Thrush, 4 Stonechat and various others. I also got the best views of Spanish Ibex I have had, and we also picked up Red Deer closely.

From here we then made our way heading towards El Chorro, good birds seen along the way included Crag Martin, Booted Eagle, Bonelli’s Eagle,Crossbill,20 odd Chough and a flock of around 50 Bee Eaters en route.

Moving onto El Chorro was a bit time consuming, entirely my fault as I couldn’t remember where I had gone previously on my visit with Louis back in September 2017. We eventually arrived at a place I recognised, all thanks to Lee who did a sterling job of getting us from A to B throughout the day on the Spanish roads.

As we arrived at the watchpoint, it soon became clear that this was a Griffon Vulture flythrough route up against the mountain. We kept a careful out for Ruppel’s but no luck, however we all got really good views of Griffons, which probably numbered around 40+ birds of this massive raptor.

We also picked up Black Kite and Booted Eagle high overhead but no Bonelli’s Eagles, 2 were previously seen at this venue in 2017. A bit of a disappointment in what was seen, despite visiting and recognizing this watchpoint before definitely, I had a sneaking suspicion that it was not the same area I visited back in 2017, if that makes sense.



Time was moving on and food was calling, so we visited a local town and enjoyed a cold beer and some fantastic Tapas, before then heading for our final destination – Fuente De Piedra.

I had talked this place up to Paul due to our last visit with myself, Mart and Lee, the birding we had back then in 2019 was fantastic and one of those days you never forget.

However back then it had the magic ingredient – water, we arrived to find a majority of it dried up other than some very distant remaining floods on the main lake, which we could see held Greater Flamingo’s amongst others.

We decided to walk and try and get better views, on the way we had a male Goshawk, and a Spotted Flycatcher and a couple of fields held around 4 Crested Lark.

We then checked the remaining water area, lots of Greater Flamingo’s and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, in amongst these were various waders. Views were still distant, and a heat haze wasn’t helping but we picked up Ruff, Little Ringed Plover, Avocet, Snipe, Black Winged Stilt, Greenshank, Redshank, Spotted Redshank, Kentish Plover and some smaller waders could have been Little Stint.

                                                                   El Chorro Walk

                                                          A dried up Fuente de Piedra

                                                             Distant Greater Flamingos

                                                                          Bee Eaters

                                                                        El Chorro

                                                                          Griffons

                                                                         Booted Eagle

                                                                  Greater Flamingos

                                                                      Crested Lark

                                                Presumably a Lesser Kestrel/Roller Tower

Booted Eagle was again seen as was 2 Raven earlier, with water levels like last time it would have been a different story no doubt, especially on the Pool on the left as you drive in where we saw a lot of birds last time ,this was bone dry.

All in all, though, a great day out again with the boys, thanks to Paul for the driving, easy birding with my mates and always thoroughly enjoyable and great company.

Spain - Sept 11th-18th

 

Just back from a great holiday to Spain staying near La Cala at my Sis’s and Dave’s place, fantastic open sky views from the 4th floor balcony and sunshine more or less every day, with temperatures hovering around 25+.

Lots of places visited both locally and afar, Ronda was a place we have been trying to get to for a while, pure old Spain, superb and very historic.

As you do, the Bins and Camera naturally found their way into the luggage, and with both of us spending most of our time on the balcony, I watched the sky quite a bit.

I recorded some good birds going over, Pallid Swifts and Red Rumped Swallow were daily along with ever present calling Sardinian Warblers below in the bushes.

September 12th will go down as one of the best days, with several flocks of Bee Eaters going over, heading for Gibraltar, totalling 213 birds. Most flocks were high, but some were just above the roof tops giving good views.

One of the best birds, and a balcony tick on the 12th, will go down to a solitary Alpine Swift going through with a number of hirundines, tried to get a photo of this but it disappeared unfortunately.

Raptors recorded were 2 flocks of Honey Buzzards on the 13th, also a Marsh Harrier on that day along with a Booted Eagle. Another balcony tick, however, was a late afternoon Osprey on the 17th,with 2 more Booted Eagles and a distant hovering Short Toed Eagle earlier doing its thing looking for Snakes. 

Also added in adjacent trees, again on the 17th were 5 Crossbills.

                                                            Bee Eaters - good numbers

                                                                      Pallid Swift 

Birds of note below in the woodland were Crested Tit, Pied Flycatcher and Firecrest.

Parliament - August

It's looking as if we still have 2 juvenile Peregrines on site, as of last week, noisy as ever giving the adults a hard time and chasing them everywhere trying to be fed.

One of the juveniles I know for sure is 'ABB' , he is a male and not surprisingly the other juvenile, a female, is the injured bird, I have nicknamed her 'Peggy'.
Remarkably the leg looks better and is tucked in tighter on flight, even landing/standing up seems more controlled by her, whereas previously she had struggled to stand and feed herself.

Whatever has happened she has hit something so hard, it has smashed the white colour ring off so it must have been a very heavy impact.

Being a bigger stronger female, she is dominating ABB when prey comes in from the adults, even when he gets there first, she just muscles in and takes it from him.

Now we are into September I would suspect that the little fella will go very shortly, I have little doubt that he may have already taken his own prey, but I suspect it's hard to leave if you know you have guaranteed prey everyday from the adults.

During August also I have also been recording what is in, or over Victoria Park and the Parliamentary Estate.

Highlights have been Sparrowhawk, male and female most days, 6 Common Buzzards over, a flock of Greylag Geese past the Eye, and rather bizarrely 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers on the stonework of Parliament.
One flew through over the Roof but the 2nd landed on some stonework, I would suspect it was looking for Spiders.

                                                         Common Buzzards over high

                                                                Great Spot - unusual

                                                                         Greylags

A rather unusual setting for a Woodpecker, both were lucky that all the Peregrines had fed, otherwise I would suspect that they would have been targeted.