Trip Report
Birding in Southern Spain
April 2010

www.Digitalwildlife.co.uk

From the 25th April 2010, I spent a week Birdwatching in southern Spain and what an excellent birding week this was. Firstly, I should thank Andy James who had some knowledge of the sites we visited, researched and planned every detail of the trip, did all the driving (we covered 3000km), and he even spoke some Spanish, which is more than the rest of us did. Valuable information also came from Dave Gosney's 'Finding Birds in Andalusia' available from birdguides. We saw over 160 species in over 7 days of mostly intensive dawn to dusk birding and it was brilliant.

I'd never done a Spanish birding trip before and was quickly struck by some key differences. Vast areas of un-spoilt countryside and I imagine some key differences in the way the habitat is managed, maintained and farmed must be at least part of the reason so many of the birds we found to be common are declining or rare breeding birds in the uk.

Probably the commonest birds were Corn bunting, Serin and Nightingale, House Sparrows were common and encountered in places where it seemed they could not have been dependant on man. Turtle Doves were regular and we recorded White Storks, Black Kites and Bee-eaters every day. Red-necked Nightjars were heard on several nights, and we didn't see a Robin all week!

Below is my account of our week, doubtless some of the information is a little vague or inaccurate. Sometimes the birding was just to good to waste time keeping accurate details. All photographs taken by me during the week.

Next we arrived at the Serena Plains, a massive area of unspoilt downland (Steppe) habitat covered in wildflowers. We spent the latter part of the afternoon through till dusk, driving around and making various stops to scan or look at birds we had seen from the car. We quickly picked up the first of many Montague's Harriers some giving close views here, and later a few Marsh Harriers. Corn Buntings, as was the case in most areas we visited, were a common bird here. We picked up two Great Spotted Cuckoos from the car and stopped to look at them, where we also found a pair of Black Eared Wheatear, and a calling Quail. We picked up Black-bellied Sandgrouse in flight, but at this stage we didn't get the hoped for Pin-tailed Sandgrouse.

As Dusk approached we found some Bustards, just a few Little Bustards but probably more than a dozen Great Bustards, both species giving excellent scope views and some males displaying in the fantastic evening light, during this time we heard and then picked out Stone Curlew and several more Montague's Harriers. As the sun set many of these birds were continually in view and we picked out a pair of Black winged Stilts on a distant pool. What a way to spend an evening, and this was just the end of the first day! Once we had pulled ourselves away we drove to our site for the following morning, where we planned to get a few hours sleep in the car, here we dropped of to the sound of Nightingale and Red-necked Nightjar singing.

Next it was onto Via Verde (Coripe) this areas has an old railway line converted to a foot/cycle path. Here we hoped to connect at an Eagle Owl site, and camp nearby for the night. There were around 40 Bee eaters feeding in the sky here as dusk approached, and we saw another Woodchat Shrike. Sadly we didn't see the Eagle Owls here, perhaps this was due to the presence of nesting Bonneli's Eagles, the other side of the tunnel we found an eyrie with two chicks and an adult at the nest. We left the site in darkness, and once again fell asleep to the sound of Nightingale this time accompanied by Tawny Owls.

Day 3 - 27th April 2010

We had a good nights sleep and were up before dawn and on the road again, as we drove out of the area we had excellent views
of 2-3 Red-necked Nightjar on the road in the headlights.

Our first site was Ronda Bridge a fascinating place in the centre of town with an incredible view over the surrounding countryside and impressive gorge. For an unforgettable experience add to this the thousands of Swifts, which seemed to be mostly Pallid Swifts, but there were also Common Swift and Alpine Swift, nesting Lesser Kestrels, Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Sparrows, Crag Martin and many Red-billed Chough.

Closed roads and a little navigation confusion actually gained us some good birds, I'm not sure if any of us know where, but over a few stops we picked up Crested Tit, Bonelli's Warbler and Iberian Chiffchaff, along with a Booted Eagle and the by now expected Griffin Vultures.

We spent the last part of the evening up until dusk at a Sierra de la Plata viewpoint, and found the cave which has apparently had breeding Little and White rumped Swifts. No Swifts were to be found, but close views of Griffin Vultures roosting and birds on nests with chicks was very nice, and we also picked up another Blue Rock Thrush and a few Lesser Kestrel and a Great spotted Woodpecker!

At the end of the causeway we decided to have a seawatch, which gave us a few Sandwich and Common Terns along with many hundreds of Black Terns, wherever you looked at all distances. On our return the pool with the Gulls held around 200 Black Terns in one impressive flock along its fringes.

After that we headed to the visitors centre at Acebuche, within one of the best know birding areas in Spain, The Coto Doñana, we decided to have lunch at the picnic site, It was busy with a school party but when things quietened down we had a couple of excellent views of the Azure winged Magpies, hopping around looking for scraps here. There were House Sparrows and a few Tree Sparrows here also.


Inside viewing the Luguna del Acebuche from the strangely designed hides, with viewing slots to low to look through standing up, but with no seats to sit down, we had excellent views of Purple Gallinule with young, and more good views of Great Reed Warbler. Otherwise it was fairly quite here, but we did hear Golden Oriole, and saw Hoopoe, Woodchat Shrikes, Black Kite and Red Crested Pochard.

Our day started at Corredor Verde in the northern part of the Coto Doñana area, the habitat was like an overgrown canal where there is apparently a large Night Heron roost, though we only saw a few birds in flight. There were plenty of other birds around however, numerous Zitting Cistacola, Little Egrets, Black Winged Stilts and Collard Pratincoles. There were also Melodious, Cetti's and Sardinian Warblers here. A Quail or two were heard calling in crop fields here and we manage to see one of them. We also had Booted Eagle and Common Buzzard here, along with eight Turtle Doves and a Spanish Sparrow. Laguna de Quema only had common Coot and seemed difficult to view, but we had many Woodchat Shrike around here and good views of Azure winged Magpie. Canada de Rianzuela is a large body of water easily viewed at distance from the hill (Dehesa de Abajo, visitors centre) from here we counted several dozen Black Kites in the sky as well as many White Storks. On the water were several hundred Flamingos, a Great White Egret and a couple of Whiskered and half a dozen Black Terns.

The friendly local we had meet earlier had given us some information about a pair of Black-shouldered Kite near Almaraz. This was one of the birds I had most hoped to see, and perhaps one we were most likely not to! The gen we had was excellent and Andy got us to the site, and quickly picked out one of the birds on a dead tree, where it was later joined by another. The whole moment was fantastic, another highlight, the scene with the dead tree against fantastic scenery, and the evening light illuminating a fantastic bird, a perfect way to end an excellent weeks birding.

Richard Ford
Birding in Southern Spain April 2010