Tarifa Autumn Tour – Day 2 Punta Comorro and La Janda

Sat 5 Sep 2015

Bob’s powers of persuasion failed to get the hotel to provide breakfast any earlier than 9.00am, so to make the most of the day we set off for an early morning visit to the local beach, Playa de les Lances. Being so far south (the north African coast was only some 15-20km away) it was only just beginning to get light as we set off at 7.30am.

By the time we had walked along the board-walk out to the beach front hide there was sufficient light for birding. Scanning along the beach we soon found several species of waders – common sandpiper, ringed plover, bar-tailed godwit, dunlin, sanderling and redshank. Many gulls, including Audouin’s again, and a couple of greater flamingos. We continued along the board-walk for a short distance before veering off and returning via the scrubland behind the beach. Here we found goldfinch, lots of corn buntings, zitting cisticola, stonechat, melodious warbler, collared dove and both common and spotless starling.

We returned to the hotel for breakfast on the terrace, with the resident house sparrows queuing up for their share of our bread crumbs.

After breakfast our first destination was a car-park in Tarifa! The reason – a pair of common bulbuls had nested there. This was unusual as this is a species that breeds just across the Straits of Gibraltar in north Africa. Ten minutes hanging around the car-park produced nothing so we walked along a narrow lane to see what else we could find. We turned up spotted flycatcher and turtle dove and the overhead presence of bee-eaters was heralded by their bubbling call. Black kite and booted eagle passed over (I was still learning how to tell these apart), and a Cetti’s warbler burst into song nearby. Back in the car-park there was still no sign of the bulbuls so we headed out of town to Punta Camorro, a headland where we could watch the migrating raptors.

In the hour or so we spent here we saw upwards of a hundred raptors circling round gaining height as they prepared to make the journey across the sea to Africa. The list consisted of honey buzzard, black kite, Egyptian vulture, booted and short-toed eagles and the occasional sparrowhawk. A fine woodchat shrike posed on a nearby fence and we also spotted willow warbler and stonechat.

We moved on to the Cazalla watchpoint on the coast road just outside Tarifa. A few more raptors passing over, but it was fairly quiet so we decided to drive west to La Janda.

We turned off the main road onto the rough track that goes through La Janda, and we had only gone a couple of hundred metres when we spotted the first great bird of the day – a black-winged kite perched in a tree. A very distant view, but another first for me. We stopped to eat lunch at the point where the track turns to follow the canal running through La Janda. Whilst here we saw both marsh and Montagu’s harrier, black stork, dozens of white stork and the ubiquitous bee-eaters.

As we continued slowly driving beside the canal we added night heron, lapwing and alpine swift and lots of others. As we arrived near some farm buildings we bumped into several more British birders. They had been here a while fruitlessly searching under the trackside trees for roosting red-necked nightjar that were known to be present. Bob, our expert leader, soon located one. Whilst we were all squinting towards it trying to make it out he found another that was more obvious (laying on bare earth rather than the leaf litter). See Bob’s blog for some great pictures.

We drove on for a while and then turned into a field onto a dirt track following the edge of a laguna. This proved very productive. Green, wood and common sandpipers, spoonbills and one each of squacco heron, ruff and spotted redshank. As we drove along we put up a large flock of glossy ibis that circled around and landed further along the laguna. Further along some ducks took flight, one of which was a rare marbled duck.

Retracing our route back to the main road we spotted lesser kestrel and woodchat shrike, and just before leaving a couple of great white egrets.

On the way back to the hotel we called into the Montenmedio Golf Course where we connected with the bald ibis that is a regular there. We spent a few minutes at the old quarry next to the golf course but did not find the eagle owl that is often to be found there.

Bob's Day 2 Blog