ALGECIRAS - ALGARROBO RAPTOR WATCH-POINT - MONTENMEDIO GOLF COMPLEX - BUJEO RECREATION PARK
WEATHER: Cloudy start to the day with high grey clouds and lower dark clouds, it looked rain all morning. From lunch time it rained on and off, sometimes heavy with thunder and lightning.
The weather didn't put us off we had a few target species to see and we set off to look for them. In the old town section of Algeciras there is now a small colony of HOUSE BUNTINGS, they are breeding and quite loyal to a residential area on the west side of town.
The streets are very narrow, there are cars parked in every nook and cranny, the house painted in every colour of the rainbow and littler is strewn all over the place. The House Bunting must feel right at home coming from Morocco because their habitat is very similar in both places. It took us all of five minutes to find a male bird, it even started to sing, lovely bird, a Spanish Lifer for me and a full blown lifer for the rest of the group.
From there we drove just afew kilometers back towards Tarifa and pulled off the road to visit Algarrobo Raptor Watch, a few Spanish birders and official 'counters' we in place and it wasn't long before our target bird began to appear. A group of 28 Honey Buzzards circled behind us, they climbed high almost into the cloud before flapping away south.
the view from Algarrobo Watch Point of Gibraltar and Algeciras Port and Bay (yellow smog included)
This sequence of events happen quite a few time with varying amount of participants, somtes two or three sometimes up to 30. It wasn't a massive movement but we saw over 100 Honey Buzzards in a couple of hours and some were very low.
A massive 'cloud' of swifts was also seen and later we saw another swirling mass, this time we picked out a fgew Alpine Swifts in with the Common/Pallid varieties. We also saw Sand Martins, House Martins, Barn and Red-rumped Swallows. Other raptors in view were: Short-toed and Booted Eagles, Black Kites and Common Kestrels. A few Bee-eaters also flew over but not many.
At 12noon we departed and drove into Tarifa to buy lunch before driving back to hotel, a few things had been forgotten and as we were passing we dropped in. We ate our lunch sitting outside rooms, then we loaded up, back into the minibus for a ride to the Golf Complex at Montenmedio near Vejer.
Praying Mantis taken at Algarrobo
We spent the first 30 minutes or so scanning the walls of a local quarry found next to the Golf Course, we searched for an Eagle Owl but only found a couple of hundred Jackdaws. We saw a swirling mass of White Storts, some more Honey Buzzards, Booted Eagles and Black Kites.
On the buildings of the Glof Complex we saw 6 Bald Ibis, they were quite distant until one them flew down towards us and landed on the green of a nearby hole in the golf course. It didn't stay long, neither did we, traget bird in the bag. move on.
Bald Ibis on the lights around the main building at Montenmedio Golf Complex
this landed very close to the bus - picture taken through my binoculars with my phone (digi-binning)
It took us 40 minutes to drive back to the Recreation Park called Bujeo which is found just above the village of Pelayo. The sky darkened as we drew near, the wind picked up and we could hear thunder in the distant. We saw Spotted Flycatcher, a few Goldfinches and Blue Tits, the odd Sardinian Warbler and a couple of Monarch Butterflies.
Thunder and lightning drew very close to us and it started to rain, we made a quick exit back to the bus just in time, because it poured down just afterwards. We drove through rain all the way back to our hotel, the rain continued into the night.
Thus ended the trip, we had recorded 145 species which is well down on the usual number of 170+ for this trip. The raptor passage and migration in general was very poor during our time in Tarifa, perhaps next year will be better?