Birding with Dale Kelly

Wednesday 16th and Tuesday 22nd April

This is Dale's second visit to the Costa Blanca within a 12 months,

Lesser Kestrel

So Dale is an enthusiastic Bird Photographer and wants to get up close, always trying to improve on his images, that said I understand why he wanted not to tick run and have a big list it's about Field Craft, patience Understanding of light and shade, and positioning.

Dale had a list of to see birds So I put together a plan and route over the 2 full days to give him the best opportunity for photography.

Red Rumped Swallow

Day one

Bonete, Corral-Rubio, Petrola.

We started early you know that malarkey about early bird catches the worm. It's not true.

On arrival, It wasn't that good as the elements were against us the temperature outside the car was 4° and the wind speed was 35 knots so it was pretty much impossible to stay outside the car,

 even holding the camera steady was almost impossible, not forgetting the wind chill it was freezing cold. It didn't help as were we both in shorts and tea shirts so most of the photography was done from the car.

Great Bustard

Great Bustards was one of the target birds and achieving it was quite easy to see these Giant Birds of the plains, but getting up close for photography was a bit more challenging we persevered and eventually Dale got what he wanted, a total of over 40 Great Bustards seen. 

My camera and lens combination seems to work better when the air is colder and it focuses correctly as opposed to when it's hot and the heat is on and there's heat diffraction which affects the autofocus and it throws the autofocus off.

Great Bustard

The seasonal pools and lakes are still there and I think they're a little fuller after recent rains.

Calandra Lark was often seen but was difficult to photo in the howling wind, Corn Bunting everywhere, also lots of Rock Sparrow, Dale got some amazing images of Common Kestrel and Lesser Kestrel. I flushed a Purple Heron, which disappeared over the undulating hills.

Other birds seen

Yellow Wagtail, Hoopoe, Lapwing, Tree Sparrow, Green Sandpipers, Thekla Lark, Marsh Harriers, Buzzard, Stone Curlews, LRP, Gadwall, Woodchat Shrike, Iberian Southern Grey Shrike, Barn Swallows, Pallid Swift, etc.

Lots of little stuff like Greenfinch linnet, Gold Finch. 

The temperature picked up, but not by much and eventually, we decided to go to Yecla for the afternoon.

The right decision almost immediately on a Black Wheatear, Woodchat strike, both forms of Black-eared Wheatear and up close, Short-toed Lark, Calandra Lark, Lesser Kestrel, No Sandgrouse today. Heard only Quail.

Black-Throated Black-eared Wheatear

White Throated Black-eared Wheatear

There were long periods of flatness without any birds but in the end, it was a successful day.

Day 2

The plan is to be at San Felipe at first light so this should be the best part of the day the early worm etc lots of Great Reed Warbler, Cetti's Warblers numerous, Reed Warblers, Red-knobbed Coot and Marbled Duck, Purple Heron, hundreds of Mediterranean Gulls, Glossy Ibis, Great White Egret fly past, lots of mosquitoes early but moved off as the sun got up there was some light rain.

Time pressure was important as we had a lot of ground to cover.

 Next Stop 

Benijzuar and the Segura River.

It was good 

Nightingales every 50 meters, Woodchat Shirke, probably 3.  Turtle Dove plenty but proved to be difficult for photography. Common Cuckoo several.

Common Cuckoo 

 At least 4/5 Golden Oriole I was about a nanosecond from getting an image very frustrating. (update after going through my Compact Flash Cards I did get the Golden Oriole) see Below

Golden Oriole

Common Cuckoo across the other side of the river

 Heard and saw Melodious Warblers, Spotted Flycatcher, Pied Flycatcher. The best serin I've ever seen so colourful and yellow. We had a rewarding few hours there.

European Roller

Time pressing on we headed back, passing by San Felipe and en route to lower la Marina at the Monastery there were at least two pairs of European Rollers, heard some Bee-eaters but not seen. A Booted Eagle circled above being mobbed by a Common Kestrel. Tree Sparrow,

                  

European Roller

European Roller

El Pinet, Montnegra. 

Collared Pratincole, Avocets, Common Tern, Little Tern, Sandwich Tern, Greater Flamingo.

All done there and off to Montnegra which turned out to be my worst decision as the black clouds started to gather it was almost twilight. But there was one golden moment a Rock Bunting showed very well.

Rock Bunting

 when I left GA 7 o'clock this morning there was no rain forecast,

 Shortly after we arrived at Montnegra the heavens opened and so after an hour of sitting in the heavy rain waiting for the Trumpet Finch to put in an appearance, we decided to call it a day and that was the end of our second Day. 10 hours of birding and some classic images under the belt.

So these are my photos of the 2 days I am pretty sure Dale's will be a so much better than mine.  Dale has the latest Canon equipment, while I'm a bit old school still using 16 year old Canon camera, from 2006.

 I still think the image are ok and not too bad, although abit of digital noise at above 400 iso. And these images are at very low resolution for the blog at 72 kilobytes 

Nice Pink Bill

 Thank you so much, Dale

I enjoyed our days out, see next time

Woodchat Shrike

Have fun go birding

Avocet

I've not mentioned every bird seen.

Cheers Bryan