We did not linger in Daimiel this time, it was a flying visit and we found parking in this small town to be very difficult. Accommodation near the park is non existent so we took the advice of the local restaurant owner and drove to the slightly nearer town of Villarubia de los Ojos. Here we stayed in a quite unique establishment called "La Vista de la Mancha". This is a series of wooden cabins built on very high ground above the town with magnificent views across the surrounding Plains of La Mancha. The cabins are very comfortable and amongst many other birds we had Golden Orioles singing right next to our bedroom in the morning. (Couldn't see them of course). I would advise people thinking of staying overnight to book here in advance, it is a very popular holiday destination for the Spanish. It might be noisy on a Saturday night as the disco will be going until late. There is a restaurant on site and I was a bit peckish so ordered a couple of chicken wings. In the event I was given a huge plate loaded with fourteen deep fried wings and thighs, enough to feed an army. Elena and I had observed that almost everybody around here was overweight, many morbidly obese. It must be the diet and if my deep fried mound was anything to go by it's not surprising.
I decided to write a separate post about the target birds of this trip. Savi's Warbler and Bearded Reedling would be Spanish firsts for me and lifers for Elena. Mick Richardson had photographed both species here a few days earlier which was the motivation for us to make the four hour drive to get here. It proved to be well worth it. I was concerned that I wouldn't recognise a Savi's Warbler if we saw one. They are visually so hard to distinguish from a common Reed Warbler. In the event I needn't have worried. We spent at least half an hour watching this guy at close range continuously belting out its strange, rattling/buzzing song. Imagine the sound of a cricket or grasshopper but without pause. That's it. It continues for ages. Once you hear the song it is relatively easy to find the singer. He likes to sit high up in an exposed position and appears to be so engrossed in making his song as loud as possible that nothing much disturbes him. Superb. The Bearded Tit has always been a favourite of bird photographers. The adult male is a splendid sight with those black moustaches on each cheek. They are often portrayed straddling two reeds, one foot on each, but here I could not get a bead on them in the reedbed which was too dense. I was lucky enough to grab a few shots of them on some dead bush branches when the birds emerged from their cover. Scientists have decided it is not actually related to the tit family so it is now known as the Bearded Reedling in a family of its own. I still think of it as the Bearded Tit however and will always know it as that. It was certainly a pleasure to find them here, the only place I have seen them in Spain. I am pleased to say they seemed to be prolific, we saw mostly juveniles, a very good sign and an indication that the health of the Tablas de Daimiel has been restored from a catastrophic decline in the sixties and seventies. The nearby town of Daimiel has a Centre devoted to the water management of the region and of the National Park in particular. On our next visit I intend to visit it and discover how they managed to reconcile the insatiable thirst for irrigation with water conservancy and protection of this valuable environment. A lesson perhaps for other sensitive areas, notably the Donana.
We did not linger in Daimiel this time, it was a flying visit and we found parking in this small town to be very difficult. Accommodation near the park is non existent so we took the advice of the local restaurant owner and drove to the slightly nearer town of Villarubia de los Ojos. Here we stayed in a quite unique establishment called "La Vista de la Mancha". This is a series of wooden cabins built on very high ground above the town with magnificent views across the surrounding Plains of La Mancha. The cabins are very comfortable and amongst many other birds we had Golden Orioles singing right next to our bedroom in the morning. (Couldn't see them of course). I would advise people thinking of staying overnight to book here in advance, it is a very popular holiday destination for the Spanish. It might be noisy on a Saturday night as the disco will be going until late. There is a restaurant on site and I was a bit peckish so ordered a couple of chicken wings. In the event I was given a huge plate loaded with fourteen deep fried wings and thighs, enough to feed an army. Elena and I had observed that almost everybody around here was overweight, many morbidly obese. It must be the diet and if my deep fried mound was anything to go by it's not surprising.
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Inspired by Mick Richardson's photos and report from Tablas de Damiel Elena and I drove there on Friday to see for ourselves. I had hesitated before, expecting it to be dried up and over exploited for irrigation, which is the dreary story for most natural water resources in Spain. We were very pleasantly surprised however. It had been virtually destroyed in the 60s & 70s but great efforts have been made since then to restore the water levels and now it is a little wetland paradise for birders.
From the Visitors Center there are a number of marked trails, yellow, red and blue. They are freely accessible at any time, early morning being the best. The Yellow Trail is particularly productive as it follows a superb boardwalk through the shallow wetland giving superb views of reedbed and ponds with surrounding low trees and bushes. The clear waters are teeming with fish. Purple, Grey and Night Herons are easily seen, as are egrets and a variety of waterfowl, especially Red Crested Pochard and Great Crested Grebe. A variety of Raptors can be seen overhead, these include Marsh and Montagu's harrier, Osprey, Common Buzzard and Kestrel. I also spotted a Bonellis Eagle along the road to the Reserve from Daimiel. A Southern Smooth Snake slithered out of the water and across the wooden debris by the riverside. A young Barn Swallow flexing its wings while perched over the boardwalk along the Yellow Trail. Reed Warblers and Great reed Warblers could be heard at all times in the reedbeds. Occasionally they would be visible through the tall grass stems allowing some photography. Tablas de Daimiel is a superb little National Park/Reserve and is well worth a visit by birders. get there early and if possible avoid weekends at it can get very busy with busloads of schoolchildren and tourists. In the quiet hours around sunrise it is idyllic.
Elena and I enjoyed our visit to the Sierra de Loja so much we decided to go back for another look. The landscape up here is rocky and some might say bleak but we like the wildness, the light and the birds. It is relatively untouched by humankind except for a few grazing sheep and the placement of a number of wind turbines on the highest reaches. The views can be spectacular and I particularly enjoy spending a day without seeing another soul, except for a solitary shepherd and a couple of extremely capable mountain bikers at the very top, I take my hat off to them. One of the birds we enjoyed seeing so much is the "Common" Rock Thrush. Formerly known as Rufous-tailed it is now officially "Common". I guess it distinguishes it from others such as the Blue Rock Thrush, but it is by no means common. For a start it is only normally found at altitudes above 1500 m. and in warmer climates. So relatively few people ever get to see one. Common or not Rock Thrushes are a delight to watch. On our previous trip we strangely only saw males, not that I am complaining because they are by far the most striking to look at, but where were the females? perhaps they are incubating eggs or tending chicks in the nest, who knows? but it was reassuring to finally see a female or two. It was fascinating to watch the couple's behaviour. The male would take up a watchfull higher vantage point as the female foraged on the ground nearby, mainly for nesting material that we observed. Occasionally the pair would be harassed by other males who would chase the female and squabble with the attendant male. This led me to believe there may be a shortage of female birds, sad for all those young and frisky males without partners. Here's a shot of a female gathering nest material. Rock Thrush males likes to make vertical flights. They shoot straight up in the air, usually singing loudly, then drop straight down again. It is amusing to watch them appear over a ridge in this manner as if shot up from a gun. I imagine it is some kind of display for the benefit of admiring females. It was a very pleasant place to spend a few hours in the sun. Five Griffon Vultures were wheeling in a thermal over the ridge, Red-billed Choughs, Linnets, Black redstarts, Rock Buntings, Rock Sparrows, Black and Black-eared Wheatears were moving all around us. Red-legged partridges roamed the rocky terrain and liked to perch on conspicuously high rocks, Groups of Ibex roamed the slopes and I spotted a bright green Ocellated Lizard scurry across the track in front of the car. We did see a few Blue Rock Thrushes up here too. I did not manage to get any decent shots unfortunately but here's a couple of archived shots for illustrative purposes. On the way down from the Sierra I snapped a couple of quick photos of a Stonechat. Now I am not in the habit of photographing such a common bird but something about this one caught my eye. For a start it was perched quite high up in a tree in woodland, not on a low shrub or rock in open ground as usual. Second it did not look quite right, the orange on the breast was more of a central patch than an overall colour, and third the hint of pale feathers behind the eye. This bird did not have quite the same "Jizz" as a normal Stonechat. Looking in Collins Field Guide I see there is an Eastern species, saxicola torquatus maurus that fits this description, and it states that "Stragglers to W. Europe show hints of pale buff eyebrows". Could this be one of those "Eastern Stonechat Straggers"? I like to think so.
A couple of visits to Sierra Loja in Granada Province, and a walk around the Guadalhorce in Malaga produced a few nice birding moments and photographs. Perhaps the highlight was watching Rufous-tailed Rock Thrushes up in the highest part of Sierra Loja. The Rock Thrush is a summer visitor from Sub-Sahara, it inhabits and breeds here on steep rocky mountain slopes and alpine meadows above 1500 meters. Sierra Loja is one such location. The male in Spring is a very handsome bird with a blue/grey head clearly demarcated from the orange breast and belly. Females are supposedly more anonymous in vermiculated and striped browns, but interestingly we observed perhaps four or five pairs, all of which looked like males, strange. I was interested to see a nice male Montagu's Harrier up here, probably the same bird spotted by Kevin Wade and Ricky Owen a few days earlier. This is essentially a lowland species but I suspect the attraction up here is the number of ground nests and in particular Partridges, which are very numerous. This bird seems to have been successful in finding a Red-legged Partridge Chick, easy pickings perhaps for a bird with such amazing eyesight and flying agility. There are a number of other species to be seen in this habitat. Not least the Rock Bunting which is very common. I like this shot of one singing its heart out on a lichen encrusted rock.
The bird below I initially thought was a Spectacled Warbler. Bob Wright who was with us at the time thought Whitethroat. I am still undecided. Bob has more experience than me, so this, plus the relatively low forehead and rather strong legs has persuaded me it's a Whitethroat, but I am not 100% on it. A shopping trip to IKEA gave us the opportunity for a walk around the Guadalhorce Reserve near Malaga Airport. This does not have the variety or number of birds of a few years ago but the exercise was welcome and we did see some nice Kentish Plovers which appeared to be nesting on the beach. This would be unfortunate because here they will be subject to a lot of human and canine disturbance on warm sunny days. How can you tell a bird to stick to their protected area? The Sanderling below had me confused. They are normally very active, scurrying around dodging the surf along the waterline in small flocks. This bird was solitary and very passive, it hardly moved. Perhaps it was not well but anyway I really like the beautiful marbled wing and back Spring plumage . I posted it on Facebook as a Little Stint but John Cantelo kindly corrected my error.
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AuthorRetired seafarer living in Frigiliana, a white village in Malaga Province in southern Spain. Married to Elena. Keen bird and wildlife watchers. Archives
July 2020
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