LA JANDA – BENALUP TRACK – BARBATE ESTUARY AND MARSH – MONTENMEDIO GOLF COMPLEX
WEATHER: the same as yesterday, cloudy until 1pm then bright sunshine. Tope temp 32C
La Janda is a great place to visit no matter what the weather is like or the time of the year, there is also plenty to see and enjoy. It was a dull and overcast morning but still warm, we had a nice chilling-breeze too. With no heat-haze to contend with we could scope for miles and that is what we did from the entrance track to La Janda.
We scanned the recently ploughed fields and the rice fields below them, we scanned the pylons and power lines and along the fence lines, this brought us some interesting sightings and lots to get to grips with. Zitting Cisticolas, Stonechats and Corn Buntings were everywhere, flocks of both Spanish and House Sparrows fed along the tracks with Goldfinches flitting about in the dried flowers.
the central track through La Janda, you can see the cloudy conditions
Three Short-toed Eagles bedecked the pylons with distant Common Kestrels and Wood Pigeons. Our first Harrier sighting was that of a juvenile Montagu’s Harrier, we saw seven more no long afterwards including a beautiful adult male.
We stopped again at the entrance to main central track and found more birds there, in the trenches around the rice fields we found Grey & Purple Herons, Great, Little and Cattle Egrets, Glossy Ibis appeared in many places and up to 10 Green Sandpipers dashed along the trenches or flew up in small flocks.
More Montagu’s Harriers appeared as we progressed along the central track, we added Yellow Wagtails, Spanish Sparrows and about 20+ Turtle Doves flew around or perched on wires. Glossy Ibis sightings increased, we found a Roller, once again it was distant and a Black-winged Kite was found even further away.
White Storks dominated the cropped fields, there was hundreds of them, we saw Kingfishers, Goldfinches and Greenfinches, Swallows and House Martins, Common Swifts, distant Griffon Vultures and more Short-toed Eagles.
The track to the ‘smelly farm’ was unproductive except for when Mike called out Red-legged partridges. We search for Red-necked Nightjars in the usual roosting place but the area has been ruined by the locals felling most of the white poplar trees. We added Black Kite and Booted Eagle to the list at that point.
On the Benalup track we saw a huge number of Griffon Vultures, maybe a dead animal was there but we could not see it from our position, we counted 170 Vultures. Bigger numbers were to come near the run-off canal from the local reservoir, at least 1,000 White Storks sat in a field, they began to take off as the ground warmed now that the clouds had gone. More White Storks drifted over, the sky was full of them alongside many Griffon Vultures.
In small pool we found our first Coot of the trip and nearby Varsha pulled a couple of Kingfishers and a Eurasian Magpie. We watched the Storks drift higher and higher, the group were delighted with a great sighting. We also logged our first Marsh Harriers of the trip in the same area as the stork flocks.
At 12:30 turned around and head off to Barbate driving back through La Janda taking the west track off toward Vejer de la Frontera, a Hoopoe flew along the track in front of bus as we neared the main road.
Barbate Estuary as the tide is rising
After picking up lunch supplies in Barbate we drove round to the bridge over the river Barbate, we set up our scopes looking over the marshes as the tide came up. The area was covered with birds, however, the heat haze ruined most of our viewing and anything more the 100 meters away was just a blur.
juvenile Red Knot with a Black-headed Gull and a Black-winged Stilt
Closer to us we logged many birds including: Sanderling, Dunlin, Great Ringed Plover, Kentish Plover, Grey Plover, Red Knot, Turnstone, Redshank, Greenshank and a single Marsh Sandpiper. Little Stint, Black-winged Stint, both Curlew and Whimbrel appeared as well as Greater Flamingo, Spoonbill, Little & Cattle Egrets and Grey Heron.
Red Knot
Greater Cormorants sat on posts and an Osprey dropped down to join them! Gulls were all over the place, we saw Black-headed, Yellow-legged, Lesser Black-backed and a group of Slender-billed Gulls, but no terns were on show.
Barbate Marsh
We then drove down the road towards Zahara de los Atunes and turned off onto the Barbate Marshland. We parked under a tree and ate our lunch whilst scanning the large pools and islands in front of us.
A lovely breeze chilled us as we ate and scoped. Thousands of birds were out on the marsh and Audouin’s Gull was in great numbers right in front of us. Pied Avocet and Black-winged Stilt went onto the list of waders and lots more of those species already seen were piled high in every directions.
Eurasian Spoonbill
We search for Collared Pratincole and Stone Curlew but neither could be found. Awe search the bushes and surrounding fields for migrant species and only found one Northern Wheatear, a couple more Montagu’s Harriers and dozens of Stonechats.
Moving around the marshes we stopped in several places and scanned for more species. Two or three Little Terns appeared, and we added our first Common Sandpiper of the day but no Stone Curlews. Near the end of the track we saw another Osprey, a much closer Spoonbill and just before we left two Caspian Terns dropped in.
record shot of the two Caspain Terns - heat haze caused the blurring not my focusing!
After stopping for an ice-cream in La Barca de Vejer we drove back towards Tarifa stopping at the Golf Complex called Montenmedio. We drove to the main buildings hoping to see Bald Ibis sitting on the roof or feeding on the fairway, but alas, none were there. A short walk in some cork-oak woodland produced very little, we saw Blue Tit, House Sparrow, Goldfinch and Chaffinch. We found three species of dragonfly, Epaulet Skimmer, Broad Scarlet and Common Darter, these complimented the Banded Groundling that we had seen at La Janda.
We got back to the hotel around 6:30pm, in good time to get ready for dinner at 8pm.