GIBRALTAR (EUROPA POINT AND EAST FACE) - PINAR DEL REY PINEWOODS - CAZALLA RAPTOR OBSERVATORY
WEATHER: OVERCAST FOR MOST OF THE DAY WITH VERY LIGHT RAIN - SUNNY LATE AFTERNOON. TOP TEMP 26C
We had a perfect last day, migration went into overdrive, we had Honey Buzzards coming out of ears. The two main raptor watch-points had over 5,000 Honey Buzzard pass over today with plenty of other species, also a Blue-cheeked Bee-eater was found by a couple of British Birders.
I guessed it was going to be a good migration day, after yesterday's very strong easterly winds, but I never imaged having Honey Buzzards up in the sky as early as 8:30am and as late as 6pm. We left the hotel just after 8am and as we drove towards Tarifa we saw our first raptors in the sky, this continued all the way to Gibraltar.
Once we were through security we made our way along the east face, stopping in a small car park to scan the 'rock' for Barbary Partridges. Sue heard them calling and after a little walk we found two of them on a wall a hundred foot up from the road, they scurried along away from us and were lost to sight. Out in the bay behind us we saw a few Cory's Shearwaters.
the east face of Gibraltar
We spent a good hour at Europa Point, mostly looking at low flying Honey Buzzards, we found a few of them perched on the top of bushes high above us. The Blue Rock Thrush was our target species we scanned the rock for one without much luck, we saw Goldfinches, Linnet and more H Buzzards.
we had a lot of low-flying Honey Buzzards this morning
Walking around the Point we logged a lot more Cory's and at least two Shags, possibly four. The sea was fairly flat and calm we could pick out lots of Bottlenose Dolphins in the Strait with more Cory's Shearwaters in attendance. On land we found a single Willow Warbler, a Sardinian Warbler and lots of Sparrows. As we neared the car we scanned the rock once again and found more Honey Buzzards perched on the top of bushes and we located a Blue Rock Thrush behind them.
a Honey Buzzard with a Blue Rock Thrush behind it!
Our attempt to get to the Bird Ringing Station was thwarted by no-entry signs, we could have walked up but we knew the station was unmanned this week.
the cloudy Rock of Gibraltar taken from Europa Point
We spent the next hour walking into the central shopping area and taking a coffee in 'Main Square' before buying lunch at Morrison's and topping up with cheap fuel nearby. It was 1pm when we arrived at Pinar del Rey, a large area of pine trees with picnic tables and a stream.
I have no birdy pics from Pinar del Rey but we did find this Southern Speckled Wood
Our birding efforts were rewarded with sightings of Short-toed Treecreeper, a beautiful Firecrest, Crested Tits, Robin, Jay, Pied Flycatcher (only our second one of the trip), Bee-eaters came over along with strings of Honey Buzzards. A walk to the stream came next, we found Grey Wagtail, a mixed tit flock of Long-tailed, Blue and Crested tits. We also heard a Wren and a Eurasian Nuthatch.
It was after 3pm when we set off back to Tarifa we saw more raptors along the way. Our last port of call was Cazalla, it was packed with birders, the car park was overflowing and soon we realised why. Hundreds of Honey Buzzards were rising on thermals together with dozens of Black Kites, Booted Eagles and Short-toed Eagles.
a White Strok flock - one of these flocks had nearly a thousand birds in it.
A humongous flock of White Storks emerged from the west, porbably a thousand birds!! A constant stream of birds filled the sky we saw several Marsh harriers and at least 14 Montagu's Harriers, two of which we dark morphs (almost black).
part of a larger flock of White Storks
It was there when I bumped into two guys that I knew and they told they just seen a Blue-cheeked bee-eater, they reckoned it had flown off but produced a picture of it, wowza!!
We continued to watch the mass migration, we must have seen athousand Honey Buzzards by now and a surprising number of Black kites too! We had three sights of Black Storks,ew Eygptian Vultures and a very large flock of Griffon Vultures. Many birds were keeing low, we picked out some perched Honey Buzzards and had many a Montys flying below us, including the black morphs.
Griffon Vultires
At 6pm the birds were still coming over but we decided to leave, we certainly had had our fill today, raptors galore, so much better than the last few years here!
Tomorrow is our last day, Sue has an afternoon flights to catch from Malaga, I am staying for another week and Bernie is staying in Tarfia for another couple of days.