TARIFA - LOS LANCES BEACH - CAMINO VECINAL - OBSERVATORIO DEL ESTRECHO - MIRADOR DEL ESTRECHO - PARQUE DEL BUJEO - OBSERVATORIO VALLE DEL SANTUARIO (SIERRA DE ENMEDIO)
WEATHER: broken sunshine for most of the morning with long sunny spells later. Very windy all day. Tope temp 32C (but felt much cooler becuase of the wind)
We had a cracking day, plenty of raptor watching, we saw most of the larger raptors with terrific views of close up Honey Buzzards, Booted Eagles, Black Kites, Egyptian Vultures and Lesser Kestrels. We saw never saw huge numbers of anything, other than White Storks, but there was always plenty to see.
After our 7am breakfast we watched Spotless Starlings in the car park and a huge flock of 100+ White Storks and plenty of Black Kites circling in the distance.
Our first venue was the boardwalk along Los Lances beach just outside of tarifa, we had a strong easterly wind on our backs. We soon clocked up a number of regular species: Corn Bunting, Spotless & Common Starlings, Yellow wagtails, Stonechat and Northern Wheatear. Zitting Cisticola was a lifer and crowd pleaser for most of my group and so was Kentish Plover, seen through the scope.
Ringed plover with a Common Sandpiper
Large Numbers of Cattle Egrets dropped down into the fields around us and on the beach, seen from the hide, we added Sanderling, Dunlin, Common Snipe, Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Ringed Plover, Kingfisher, Grey Heron, Little Egret and Yellow-legged Gulls. In the grassy meadows we added Hoopoe, Northern Wheatear, Stonechat, Crested and Short-toed Larks.
Cattle Egret
Three Purple Herons flew along the shoreline and dozens of Cory Shearwaters could be seen patrolling the innershore. At one point a Black Kite disturbed a dozen Whimbrel and all the Cattle Egrets also went up, it was quite a spectacle. Some of the Whimbrel came down and landed on fence-posts, I've never seen that before.
Whimbrel on a fence post! Have you seen this happen?
Raptors we always in the sky above us, I don't any of them attempted to cross over the 'strait' to Africa becuase of the strong easterly wind would perhaps blow them off-course into the Atlantic ocean. We added Egyptian Vulture to the list and we lots of Honey Buzzards were in the mix. Kieth is interested in plants too, he found the rare Sand Spurry!
some of the Cattle Egrets in the meadows behind Los lance Beach
For lunch we picked up our supplies at a supermarket in Tarifa, where Kieth saw a Meadow Pipit on the roof and more Egyptian Vultures came over. before eating our picnic supplies we walked along a track (camino Vencinal) where we hoped to find a lot of migrant species. We saw a few Spotted Flycatchers, Goldfinches, Sardinian Warblers and two of us saw an Orphean Warbler. The star sightings were of 4 Lesser Kestrels and a perched Honey Buzzard.
Hoopoe
At the Observatorio de Estrecho we nearly got blown off our feet. We sought shelter behind a building to eat our lunch and we enjoyed terrific views of a number of raptors which were mainly Black Kites but also Marsh Harrier, Booted and Short-toed Eagle, Sparrowhawk and in the distance we saw at least 200 White Storks.
For a coffee stop we visited the cafe at Mirador de Estrecho, unfortunatley the cloud and sea-mist was so thick we could not see Morocco across the Strait. But, once again we had very close views of fly-by Honey Buzzards.
above and below is a Honey buzzard taken by Tony Moore
Further along the coast we pulled into the Parque de Bujeo where we specnt a wonderful couple of hours watching migrant and resident passerines. Flycatchers were everywhere, we also clocked: Common Redstart, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Hoopoe and Golden Oriole (heard). Local birds included Eurasian Nuthatch, Firecrest (heard), Blue Tit, Cirl Bunting, Chaffinch, Greenfinch and Hawfinch and Sardinain Warbler.
there is a Cirl Bunting hiding in there somewhere!
In the open meadow we found a few butterflies, Holly Blue, Monarch and an unknown Skipper which failed to settle.
Our last port of call was the Observatorio de Santuario, which is found along a lane behind our hotel. It gives commanding views over the rolling hillside down to los Lances beach. It also sits just beneath the steep slopes of Sierra Enmedio, a huge limestone mountain whith slopes covered on Umbrella Pines and steep cliff-faces covered in Griffon Vultures. We spent a while vulture watching before we walked into the srubby, rock-strewn, areas looking for Thekla's lark and Black-eared Wheatear. We found Northern Wheatear and maybe a fly-past Thekla's Lark but not much else. Another Monarch Butterfly fle past us and we noted Meadow Brown too.
Egyptian Vulture taken by Tony Moore
at 6pm we call it a day and drove the short distance back to the hotel.