LAGUNA MARTIN ANGEL – LAGUNAS DE BONANZA – SALINAS DE BONANZA – LAGUNA TARELO – PLAYA DE MONTIJO – CHIPIONA MARINA
WEATHER: cloudless sky all day with a nice cooling breeze. Top temp. 27C
We had a fantastic day at the salt pans at Sanulcar de Baremeda, the weather was just perfect, a lovely breeze and very little heat haze, we saw a lot of species including some ‘goodies’.
We set off at 8am and took 90 minutes to get to our first destination the laguna at Martin Angel on the outskirts of Sanlucar. We climbed a small bank to view the water and immediately flushed about 50 Mallards, Doh! They returned and settled on the far side where we also saw lots of Glossy Ibis, Grey Heron, Little Grebe, Green Sandpiper and in the tamarisk bushes we saw dozens of Night Herons roosting.
One of the three lagunas at Bonanza
We drove the short distance to the three Bonanza Lagunas found along Calle Coloradoand there we had a whale of a time. We quickly located White-headed Ducks, two Marbled Ducks, at least two Temminck’s Stints, Little Stint, Curlew Sandpiper, Dunlin, Common Green Sandpiper, dozens of Little Ringed Plover and a few Greater Ringed Plovers.
a juvenile Little Ringed Plover
We searched the Coots for any with Red knobs on the forehead but didn’t see one. Purple Swamphen, Kingfisher, Yellow Wagtail, Squacco Heron, Little Egret and a small colony of Black-headed Weaver were also seen. Glossy Ibis seemed to be everywhere.
White-headed Duck
Marbled Duck - not cooperating! With Glossy Ibis and a Coot
The final and biggest laguna of the three in the area was alive with Little Egrets, a large breeding colony was very noisy. We searched and searched for the Red-knobbed Coot, we knew one had been seen recently but it refused to show for us. We did enjoy looking and found two more Sqacco Herons and a Little Bittern. Another Kingfisher dased about and we found our first Shoveler of the trip.
it was in the nearest bit of water that the Red-knobbed Coot appeared
After spending about an hour looking for the nobby Coot we gave up and starting to walk away when I glanced back ithe nearest part of water to us and there was the Red-knobbed Coot, I sure I saw it wave a wing to us as we were leaving. We remained for a further 15 minutes but the bird dashed into the reeds and never came back out.
Little Egrets with a juvenile Coot
Our visit to the Salt Pans at Bonanza was also very enjoyable the cooling breeze made viewing so much more comfortable with very little heat haze. We notched a few more species as we scanned through hundreds of waders, mostly were Dunlin, Little Stints, Curlew Sandpipers, Redshanks, Greenshanks and Black-winged Stilts. We watched a feeding frenzy going on with the Slender-billed Gulls and enjoyed the graceful elegance of the Greater Flamingos. Distant sighting included an Osprey and a Caspian Tern.
Slender-billed Gulls
We visited two other areas round the salt pans and we took a long walk to a pumping station. We added Eurasian Spoonbill (50+), Black-tailed Godwit, Avocet, Booted Eagle, Marsh Harrier, Montagu’s Harrier (2 juveniles), Zitting Cisticola, Sardinian Warbler and a huge flock of Shoveler.
Greater Flamingos, Shovelers and Black-tailed Godwits, Avocet and a few Black-headed Gulls
We drove around to Laguna Tarelo where we hoped to see black-necked Grebes, we found two of them, one in summer plumageand the other in winter. We noted 13 more Marbled Ducks, more Shovelers, White-headed Ducks, Green and Common Sandpipers, dozens of Common Coots, Moorhens and a few Egrets and herons.
the outflow at the pumping station
It was approaching 3pm and we hadn’t stopped for lunch, so we drove into Sanlucar to a supermarket, bought our picnic supplies and drove to the beach at Montijo to eat it.
We scanned the sea at high tide looking for sea birds, two or three fishing boats were returning to the harbour with entourage of dozens of gulls. We picked out Sandwich Terns, a distant Gannet and a possible Arctic Skua was seen by one of the group.
It was approaching 5pm when we made it to the marina at Chipiona we parked next to the main building there and as soon as we got out of the bus we found two Little Swift. Over the next 15 minutes we had excellent views of up to 10 birds visiting their nest under the open roof of the building it was great bird to finish off the day with.
there is a Little Swift in this picture somewhere (hand held using my phone)
We left just after 5pm and it took 90 minutes to get back to the hotel, giving us good time to get ready for dinner at 8pm.