Day 5: Another poor morning sea watch resulted in 4 Cory's Shears and 4 Yellow-legged Gulls heading through and so too breakfast we went adding the usual Spanish Sparrows and to my surprise the pair of African Blue Tit were back in the exact same tree as yesterday. After Breakfast we decided to head up the local mountain again since my brother hadn’t been up yet. On the way up we passed a Spectacled Warbler just outside the hotel but otherwise all was quiet. This time we did a circular route and this took us closer to the sewage farm. Knowing how good sewage farms can be for birding I decided to head down the mountains side slightly to get a better view as a Berthalots Pipit flew past. Down at the Sewage plant i could see the main area was full of Cattle Egret with around 16 present. Upon Closer inspection I could also now make out a flock of Hirundinidae which to my surprise included around 40 to 50 House Martin as well as the odd Plain Swift. I watched the flock for a while as they fed but in the end, I couldn’t pick out anything rare in and amongst them. We then headed back down the mountain and crossed the main road before adding 4 more Plain Swift and a fly over Southern Grey Shrike to the day list. Above: Spot the Fuerteventura Sand Grasshopper. Almost all of the Grasshoppers and Crickets found on the island are endemic and can only be found on the island. Above: Cattle Egrets Below: House Martins (the little specs) After lunch we decided to head to the Lakey Beach/ Playa De Sotavento. Upon arrival I immediately noticed 2 Spoonbills feeding in the shallow water. One was ringed and I was pleased to find out that V068 was still alive and well after my first meeting with this bird over one and a half years ago. This bird was born in Denmark in 2014 and has since spent every winter in Fuerteventura however this year he seems to have most likely stayed on the island through the summer as well, although I will await the life history of the bird just to double check. Two Little Egret were also fishing in the shallow and the monstrous tide had even brought in a Grey Heron and several Yellow-legged Gulls which were taking full advantage of the stranded fish. This beach has got to be one of my most favourites in the world, where else can you get Spoonbills feeding within just a few metres of you? Above: My photo's of the Spoonbills Below: My Brother's Photo's of the Spoonbills Above: Little Egret We decided to head a little way along the beach and we found someones belongings being stolen by a group of Barbary Ground Squirrel and some inquisitive Berthalots Pipit. I could also hear plenty of Spectacled Warblers rattling from the bushes but never did manage to see one. Above: Berthalots Pipit Below: Barbary Ground Squirrels Above: Spanish Sparrow We carried along the beach heading to the sand dunes with more Berthalots Pipits and rattling Spectacled Warblers around us. A strange sound was also coming from a cave on the cliff and this turned out to be one of the local Ravens. Painted Lady butterflies were also numerous around the beach and must have been the butterflies that I have seen fleeting glimpses of all day. Another highlight was when just before we left one of the Little Egrets flew in and started to fish right next to us in a slightly unorthodox style flying and chasing the fish rather than using their normal stealth like techniques. Above: Little Egret Below: Fish sp Above: Little Egret Below: Yellow-legged Gull Above: Extremely worn Painted Lady We then headed back to the hotel finding an African Grass Blue Butterfly as well as a Small White in the hotel grounds. The afternoons sea watch was massively productive with 109 Cory's Shearwaters logged in a 30-minute period; however, I am still yet to find something better in and amongst the flock which continues to be frustrating. We then headed to dinner and on the way back I added a new species to the hotel list in the form of a House Martin which flew North along the coast. And so That ended another extraordinary day in Fuerteventura with extraordinary views of Both Spoonbills and Little Egret during what I now know to be the Kite Surfing world championships. Now I am going to get some rest before a big day touring the island tomorrow. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? Above: Cory's Shearwaters Above: Yellow-legged Gull (Apology's for the splodges on some of the images. Unfortunately my camera is dying a horribly slow and painful death and now has some dead pixels. It looks as though I am going to have to upgrade/ renew much quicker than I had anticipated but at 6-7 year old I guess my camera has served me well.) I thought I would finish with some scenery shots from today taken by my brother and I. Above: My images
Below: My brother's
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The mornings sea watch was quieter than usual however there was still a decent return of Cory’s Shearwaters and Yellow-legged Gulls. The first Spanish Sparrows of the day were had on the way to breakfast and so was a new visitor to the hotel with a Cattle Egret sat watching the pack of hungry tourists heading to breakfast. After breakfast I decided that I would head to an abandoned Golf Course which sits just North of Morro Jable. The first collard Doves of the day where on the roof of the hotel as I left. I hadn’t gone very far when I noticed four incredibly tame doves running around the parked cars. Upon closer inspection I found that all 4 were rather smart looking Laughing Doves. It was truly incredible to see them so close as last time David had taken me to a specific location in order to see one. It was also interesting to note just how small this species is compared to the collared dove, perhaps only measuring half the size. Above: Laughing Dove Moving on further a Raven flew through over head and a flock of plain Swifts were feeding low over some palm trees. I then headed along the main road and after a bit of trial and error managed to find a safe route to head down to Morro Jable. A flock of 4 Barn Swallow flew through and on my right hand side a flock of 22 Yellow-legged Gulls were loafing about. My original plan was to start of at a bird hide which is on a main footpath but I decided this may not be the best idea since that it looks straight out onto a busy stretch of beach. Instead I decided to climb the steep road up to the golf course. Upon arrival at the summit the view was as incredible as yesterday’s with a view down towards the Morro Jable Light House and also the view of the parched golf course. In fact to my surprise there were actually people playing golf on this barren surface. I have to admit that my hope was fading by the second as the vegetation was either dead or dying. I hadn’t moved far when something rustled in the Bush beside me and I turned to see a Southern Grey Shrike staring back at me through the fence. It didn't seem to bothered by my presence and started to preen and so I moved further on. Eventually the rattling of a Spectacled Warbler drew my attention and I was surprised to find both a Male and Female perched on top of a nearby Bush. Moving on further still I came across another Shrike and yet more Spectacled Warblers. Above: The Southern Grey Shrike was just too close for my camera to focus. I then reached a road that ran into the heart of the golf course and as i did so a flock of birds caught my attention. I was surprised to find that these birds were 3 Ruddy Shelduck in some bizarre plumage. After they had landed they seemed pretty contempt with the situation and proceed to head off to sleep right in the way of one of the holes much to the frustration of the golfers that had just turned up. Especially as one was sat right over the hole. Above: The Ruddy Shelducks I decided to leave them and no sooner had a done that then another Southern Grey Shrike popped up on the railing. I was just about to photograph this shrike when I heard a Canary Islands Stonechat and it did the correct thing and flew in and sat on the fence blocking my cameras view of the shrike. This endemic species of stonechat sound similar to the Eurasian species however it is a slightly duller bird overall in order to be adapted to its dusty rocky landscape. Above: Canary Islands Stonechat - Formerly known as the Fuerteventura Stonechat. It is believed that this species used to be widespread across the eastern canary islands, however is now extinct on all the other islands bar Fuerteventura. The cause of this extinction is unknown especially since the population is healthy and stable on Fuerteventura. I then carried on my trip around the golf course to the sound of Spanish Sparrows and Spectacled Warblers rattling away from the bushes. I then reached the Northern part of the gold course where a lose group of Hoopoe were feeding alongside the island subspecies of Common Kestrel and a Southern Grey Shrike was sat on a nearby fence post. Above: Hoopoe Below: Kestrel I have to admit that I though that I was on a circular route however I soon reached a dead end. This was a rather bizarre place with a derelict hotel with empty swimming pools and both Feral Pigeons and Collared Doves nesting in the roof. I started to head back towards the middle of the golf course and as I did a flock of 8 Cattle Egret appeared on the horizon before dropping down in the distance. Eventually I reached the roundabout in the middle of the golf course and decided to have a quick scan through what I thought was a flock of Spanish Sparrows. Let’s just say that I was pleased that I decided to look for the vast majority of the flock was actually made up of well over 40 Trumpeter Finch. I also managed to picked out a Linnet as well as a Male Spectacled Warbler feeding in and amongst them. It was a bizarre mix, however they were soon flushed by a car using the roundabout and this lead to the trumpeters making their trumpet like calls. The Male Canary Islands Stonechat was still about as he was flycatching from a road sign and a Southern Grey Shrike stood watch from his perch in the middle of the Golf Course. Just before I headed back to the hotel 3 Raven flew over, as did a female Kestrel. Above: Trumpeter Finch Below: Male Canary Islands Stonechat Above: Ravens (I think I need a new camera and soon) Below: Trumpeter Finch Above: Sothern Grey Shrike Below: Spectacled Warbler On the way back every few metres along the road I could hear rustling and eventually I managed to see the culprit as two (what I believe were) Atlantic Lizards ran out ahead of me on the path only to freeze when they saw me. Very soon they had forgotten about their squabble and decided to make a dash for cover. Little did I know that they weren't actually hiding from me in this instance as a pair of Cattle Egret landed on the road nearby and started to run in and out of the parked cars catching lizard after Lizard. The cattle egrets were extremely bold as a they were dashing in and out of the cars and heading out into the lanes of traffic as well. Above: Cattle Egret After this I headed back to the hotel on the route I had found earlier on passing a rather squished North African Hedgehog and another pair of Southern Grey Shrike. An Alpine Swift was now in the flock of Plain Swift circling the palms and the laughing Doves showed even better than before. After lunch it was family time and an hour each of both tennis and football was had before dinner. After dinner it was back to sea watching with a few Plain Swift seen as well as a decent movement of Yellow-legged Gulls North was greeted by an even bigger movement of Cory's Shearwaters South with over 100 through during the 30 to 40minutes that I was watching. Unfortunately no other species were added so fingers crossed over the next few days that might change. Anyways bed now beckons me so here's to another good day tomorrow. A cloudy start to the day saw a rather unsuccessful sea watch before breakfast with only a handful of Yellow-legged Gulls passing South and the odd Cory's Shearwater as well. The walk to breakfast gave us another new species for the hotel list with 2 Ravens passing over head and plenty of Spanish Sparrows again around the hotel grounds. Today was the first of three days that we had a hire car for and so we decided to drive into the centre of Morro Jable. Along the way I picked the Plain Swifts up over the lush gardens of a nearby hotel and plenty of collard doves were about. Perhaps more surprising was the Scared Ibis that flew over the car as we entered the town but this wasn’t to be the most exotic bird of the day. Morro Jable is a well-kept town with a watering system keeping the grass verges alive. This seems to benefit some of the local wildlife since one particular roundabout had 13 Cattle Egret feeding in the middle. One was a plumage I had never seen before with all dark legs and a black bill so presumably this was a juv. Once we had parked up we decided to do our usual walk down to the lighthouse. Once at the lighthouse we found a rather tame Berthalots Pipit as well as the equally tame Barbary Ground Squirrels. There were also plenty of Feral Pigeons about as well as a few Yellow-legged Gulls lurking about trying to nick food of the tourists. While enjoying all of this the constant rattling of Spectacled Warblers could be heard. Along the way back another Berthalots Pipit was seen and also the first butterflies of the trip. These butterflies reminded me of the Silver Studded Blue in the UK but were perhaps even smaller. They were in fact African Grass Blues and a new species for me. Above: Berthalot's Pipit Below: Collard Dove Above: Spot the African Grass Blue Butterfly... We then headed back to the main street and just as we were about to head home I spotted another large flock of Cattle Egret feeding on the grass verge opposite where we had park. We decided to head here to see what was about and what we found was no where near what was to be expected. In and amongst the flock of 12 Cattle Egret there were 3 Hadeda Ibis as well as plenty of Collard Doves and Monk Parakeets. The Monk Parakeets were particularly noisy as they were building their nests in the palm trees above us. The Hadeda's were simply incredible and were massive. They must be the size of a Herring Gull at least and were extremely tame. It is believe that both the Hadeda's, Sacred Ibis and also the vast majority of the Monk and Ring-necked Parakeets are descendants of escapees from a zoo that no longer exists in Morro Jable. Above: Hadeda Ibis Below: Monk parakeet Above: Cattle Egret Below: Hadeda Ibis Above: Monk Parakeet with Feral Pigeon/Rock Dove Below: Cattle Egret After a brief stop to look at some of the feral cats roaming the street we headed back to the car and then drove back to the hotel. Above: Collared Dove Below: Feral Cats Whilst walking through the hotel to head back to our room I thought i could hear the sound of a Blue Tit coming from one of the very few Canarian Pines growing in the resort and sure enough upon closer inspection I found two African Blue Tit feasting on the pine cones. This was another incredible experience and find as previously the African Blue Tit were only though to inhabit the Northern, and Central areas of the island. I watched them feeding for a while only to realise that my family had headed back to the room without me to get ready for lunch so once I was satisfied I decided to follow them back. After lunch we headed down to the beach for a swim seeing a rather close Plain Swift as well as plenty of Yellow-legged Gulls. The sea was rather chilly so we didn’t stay in for long and soon headed back to get ready for the afternoons football session. After this dinner was had and then an evening sea watch saw over 40 Cory's Shearwaters through in just over 10 minutes however with the light now fading, I decided to call it a night. (Apology's for the splodges on some of the images. Unfortunately my camera is dying a horribly slow and painful death and now has some dead pixels. It looks as though I am going to have to upgrade/ renew much quicker than I had anticipated but at 6-7 year old I guess my camera has served me well.)
A warm sunny day saw us heading to Gatwick for our summer holiday. The traffic was a nightmare and with the M25 as poor as usual and the M23 a no go we ended up diverting through Reigate in order to get to the airport. Thankfully we managed to get to the airport with just enough time to grab a sandwich before heading to the plane. Our Norwegian Air flight to Fuerteventura was on time and we experienced very little turbulence which is a little unusual for this route, but I was most grateful for that. Once we had landed we quickly made it through the terminal and headed to the coach stand. It was an odd hazy sunshine when we arrived and given that the wind was coming from an easterly direction I presume that we were in the midst of Saharan dust. It was however still warm out and so once we made it to our coach I think we were all thankful for the air conditioning. Once on the coach I had a scan to see what was about. Feral Pigeons were of course my first bird for the trip with plenty of those around the airport. I then noticed a small line of Canarian Pines running along the main road so I decided to give them a scan. And sure enough the first Plain Swift of the trip was hawking insects from them as expected. we finally set off south and during the trip I added Collard Dove, Yellow-legged Gull, 2 Egyptian Vultures as well as plenty more Feral Pigeons and Plain Swift as well as the usual Island goats to the trip list. At around 830pm we finally made it to the hotel and passed a rabbit which Is the first I have ever seen on this island. Spanish Sparrows were numerous in the hotel grounds and a quick scan from the hotel revealed my first ever Cory’s Shearwaters with plenty of them gliding through on massive out stretched wings as they headed South along the coast. I wonder what I will find in the next few days? Today I decided to make the most out of the sea view and to be honest at first it felt as though this might have been a bad decision with plenty of Yellow-legged Gulls moving through and not much else. Eventually a few Cory's Shearwaters appeared heading South and a pair of Collard Dove flew through close to the hotel. We then trundled off to breakfast and on the way we stumbled across plenty of Spanish Sparrow which seemed to have an interesting individual mixed in with them. Plenty of Plain Swift were also about first thing hawking insects above the hotel. That was when I noticed a slightly larger Swift with a white stomach and Alpine Swift was added to the trip list. We then headed to our welcome meeting and although this may seem an insignificant event upon leaving the conference centre I noticed that one Alpine Swift had now become two as they superbly hawked invisible insects out of the sky above the hotel. We decided that the beach would be the best place to head to this morning. We hadn’t quite predicated how high the tide would get and so we pretty soon ran out of beach to walk on. We did however see the first Barbary Ground squirrels of the trip as well as a few Feral Pigeons lurking in the crevices above them. Yellow-legged gulls were also numerous as we Plain Swifts. We reached a car park between two hotels a little further down the coast and here we stopped for a little while trying to figure out what to do and while doing that I scanned the nearby area picking up 2 Barn Swallow in and amongst the Plain Swifts which suggested that there was a decent movement of Hirundinidae. 3 Goldfinch flew through before we decided to head back along the coast. Above: Barbary Ground Squirrel Below: Yellow-legged Gull We hadn’t gone particularly far when I noticed a raptor circling over us. I was surprised to find out that it was in fact a dark Morph Eleanora's Falcon which is quite a scarcity for this island. After this a Collard Dove was the only thing we saw bar the odd Spanish Sparrow and so we headed back for lunch. Above: Eleanora's Falcon After lunch my dad and I decided to go for a hike up one of the nearby extinct volcanoes. On the way up we saw several rather tame Barbary Ground Squirrels including on that came over to sit on my hand. Bird wise it was pretty poor however a pair of tumbling Raven near the summit was a nice surprise. Once we had reached the top it was rather windy to say the least so we had to sit down in order to not get blown over the edge. There wasn’t an awful lot of bird life however there was a sewage plant on the southern side of the mountain that had at least 5 Cattle Egret flying around it so it wasn’t a complete waste of time and plus the view was simply amazing. We then headed back down the way we came however it took a long time due to the fact that we had done the climb in probably not the most sensible of footwear. One slide after another and I am surprised that neither one of me or my dad were hurt on the way down given the amount of times we lost our footing.
Once at the bottom we headed back towards the hotel where we would find one of the friendly goats nibbling on the vegetation and a Kestrel hovering over head. The rest of the afternoon was spent playing football on the astro and adding another 2 Raven, a Barn Swallow and plenty more Spanish Sparrows and Collard Doves to the hotel list. In the evening I decided to finish the day with another sea watch and boy was that rewarding. There must have been literally hundreds of Cory's Shearwaters moving through heading in all directions. Some were incredibly close while others where miles out and mere specs cruising over the waves. A small Shearwater appeared at one point but unfortunately it was too far out to identify. However given size relative to the Cory’s I am not convinced that it was small enough for Barolo, so perhaps it was a Manx. Anyways with the Yellow-legged Gulls heading back North to roost I decided to call it a night. (Apology's for the splodges on some of the images. Unfortunately my camera is dying a horribly slow and painful death and now has some dead pixels. It looks as though I am going to have to upgrade/ renew much quicker than I had anticipated but at 6-7 year old I guess my camera has served me well.) |
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