Aquila Bird Tours: Gibraltar Mon 29th Nov

Sunday, 5 December 2010

Gibraltar Mon 29th Nov - Friday 3rd Dec

The "Rock"

View across to Spain

View of Africa from the Obs

On Monday morning Ray Marsh, my dad Mark Powell and myself set out in the direction of Gibraltar for a few day ringing and birding. I had never previously been to the "rock" and as the above pictures show it quite a sight and very imposing on the surrounding landscape. On the way down we decided to stop off at Fuente de Piedra near Malaga to look for a Lesser Flamingo which had been here last week. Unfortunatley we were unsuccessful but we did manage to find 2 Red-crested Coots within the huge wildfowl flock on the lake.

We arrived at the bird observatory in the afternoon in the heavy rain, as a result we didn't get the chance to do much birding. I did however get my first views of Africa (see above) and we took advantage of the poor weather by preparing everything for putting the nets up in the morning.

Common Crane

We awoke to the sound of lashing rain and decided quickly to spend the day birding La Janda near Cadiz as ringing would not be possible. The rain and wind made it hard going at times but this area is superb for birds and we were not disappointed, during 4 hours at the site we recorded of note; Common Crane (500+!!), White Stork (20+), Purple Swamphen (30+), Water Rail (2), Green Sandpiper (5), Golden Plover (30), Lapwing (100+), Marsh Harrier (40+ including 14 in the air together), Hen Harrier (2- male and female), Common Buzzard (20+) and Black-winged Kite (4).

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday morning were spent ringing and in total we caught 72 birds with 3 retraps comprising - Robin (34), Black Redstart (17), Sardinian Warbler (10), Blackcap (7), Blackbird (3), Blue Tit (1), Chaffinch (1), Song Thrush (1) and the star of the trip, a single Crag Martin!

Obviously our days were dominated by ringing but we did also have some birding highlights whilst at the obs, which included - Firecrest (3), Griffon Vulture (1), Barbary Partridge (2), Great Skua (1 past Europa point), Kittiwake (1 ad + 1 juv past Europa point) and 2 White Stork in off the sea. We also took the time to get some pictures of the resident Barbary Macaques! See below.