After a hectic first day to the tour, today was slightly more relaxed hence me having time to do a more substantial post. Before going into detail about today, as promised I will quickly give a little more detail on yesterday.
The entire day was spent local visiting El Hondo, Santa Pola, El Pinet and a couple of other sights we have, recording in total an impressive 108 species. Obviously the views of Greater Spotted Eagle were the highlight of our first day, however some other interesting species were noted, including - Jack Snipe (1 on the Segura River), Temminck's Stint (2 at Santa Pola), White-headed Duck (7 at El Hondo from the new hide near visitor centre), Black-winged Kite (1 near San Miguel Salinas), 10 species of Raptor and other lifers for the group such as; Lesser Short-toed Lark, Slender-billed Gull and Little Bittern.
Booted Eagle
Today we visited some nearby farmland in search of some new species and had great success from the offset with 12 Black-bellied Sandgrouse and a handful of Thekla Lark. An enjoyable day in the field eventually resulted in another 20 species being added to the tour list including another early House Martin!
The above Booted Eagle enjoying its hard fought lunch was one of the days highlights as was the Chiffchaff pictured below which on closer inspection had been ringed. The bird (which was one of at least 30 feeding in a river mouth) eventually came close enough to see that the ring was indeed a BTO English ring! Tomorrow we will be targeting some more lifers for the group and will hopefully have some good pictures for the evening post.
Chiffchaff
Chiffchaff - note BTO ring on right leg.
Little Egret
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