Trip Reports

Coto Donana & Tarifa March 2008

The sky was a clear azure blue and the light was very good as we emerged from the hotel at 8 am. We took breakfast at a café/bar just around the corner, coffee and large rounds of toast were consumed with great enthusiasm.  
After breakfast we set off for the ‘cowboy style’ town of El Rocio with its sandy roads and hitch rails for horses outside every dwelling. We started our list with Spotless Starling, Black Kite, Common Buzzard, Corn Bunting, Wooodchat Shrike, Red-rumped Swallow, Serin, Common Raven, Azure-winged and Common Magpies and Goldfinch all seen en-route.   
Arrivng at El Roicio we took in the truly bizarre setting, but what a wonderful place, cars look strangely out of context there. Adjacent to the town is the Laguna Madre de las Marismas a large shallow lagoon that is fed by the arroyo del la Rocina. What a fabulous place, birds were everywhere the whole area teamed with life. Spoonbills, Greater Flamingos, Glossy Ibis, and Egrets fed or loafed alongside many species of ducks and waders. The most notable of theses species were Little and Cattle Egrets, Garganey, Shoveler, Pintail, Gadwall and Teal. The water level was just right for waders and many hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits were feeding voraciously in the muddy shallows. We also saw some Ruff, Common Snipe and Black- winged Stilts.