Seven of Twelve

Today John and I thought we'd check out the Santa Pola Salinas it's our local patch, and check out our most productive route around and ending up at San Felipe.

I have to say it was mostly quiet everywhere, but we did have some good moments, more of that later.

Across the Salinas, compared to other visits, it was a bit dead.  Rafts of Great-crested Grebe.  Good views of 12 Great White Egret, from the area of the big stones.

Great White Egret 7 of 12

  No Spoonbills. A few small waders on the muddy margins, as we crossed the Salinas but unable to stop to check out the ID  due to volume of traffic.  lots of Greater Flamingo, Avocet and Black winged Stilt.

It's very dry everywhere so water is key.         

         

El Pinet

 Virtually no mud and big areas of fencing blown down, a waste of effort going there.  I'll give this place a miss till water levels drop

 Kestrel

                                             

At  La Marine and the coast,  nothing much to report but 20+ Grey Herons flew from the fish farms out at sea to the coast which was different. The Herons are obviously after the fish out there? There are a good number of Grey Heron around everywhere.

 Grey Heron

  No sign of any Shearwaters from the beach to the horizon?

At some point we,d hoped to come across a flooded field on our travels. As there's been no significant rain for months and months?

Lucky we did find a few little diamonds......

flood fields, which was more luck than judgement, but great anyway.

                                               

Yellow Wagtail

   There were several fields which held a good number of Migrating Yellow Wagtail, 5 Wood Sandpipers, 1 Green Sandpiper, Ringed Plovers, Hundreds of  Black-headed Gulls and some good numbers of Mediterranean Gulls and in the mix, 100+ Glossy ibis,  Jackdaw,  Cattle Egret, Little Egret, more Yellow Wagtails, White wags and Kingfishers

 .

 Ringed Plover

                                               

 Wood Sandpiper

                                                           Santa Aguada                                                                  

Some major work has been going on, 

all the scrub has been cleared, trees have been cut back and paths cleared, and the main pool has been flooded.

  Mediterranean Gull

                                           

Mediterranean Gull

But not one Water Pipit??? Which is unusual as they been seen elsewhere?

Other bird's seen at least 5 Bluethroats. Booted Eagle, Marsh Harrier, LRP,  lots of Common Kestrel, Lesser black-backed Gull, Shell Duck, numbers of Stonechat have increased and Swallows still buzzing about.

Stonechat 

San Felipe 

Not much going on around the visitor centre,  the main lake you could hardly see anything.  The usual Marbled Duck and Red knobbed Coot were about. It was very hard to view anywhere it could all do with a cut back and the water in the main pool looked a odd colour, we didn't look at the outer pools as we felt it was all a bit flat and with no birds? 

Yellow Wagtail

So we called it a day and headed for home

A nice days birding thank God for flooded fields

Have fun

Cheers BT