Tarifa Autumn Tour – Day 6 Ojan Valley, Barbate Marshes and Sierra de la Plata

Wed 9 Sep 2015

We began our day with another early morning visit to Los Lances beach. There seemed to be more birds about today. Quite a few Audouin’s gulls were in front of the hide along with bar-tailed godwits, dunlin, sanderling and a couple of greater flamingos. Scanning further along the beach we found Kentish and ringed plovers, grey heron and little egret. Some black kite flew over and a couple landed on the beach. We continued along the full length of the board walk and then circled back. Cattle egret were in the field with livestock along with lots of corn bunting, a couple of yellow wagtails and a hunting kestrel. We saw three species of lark – skylark, crested and greater short-toed. As we slowly made our way back to the car we found zitting cisticola, stonechat, goldfinch and house sparrow and many bee-eaters overhead. Finally, near the car, both common and spotless starlings.

After returning to the hotel for breakfast we headed off to the Trafico/Punta Camorro headland for some more raptor watching. A flock of eight black storks flew over just as we arrived and then a steady stream of booted and short-toed eagles. The odd black kite and a solitary sparrowhawk showed. Nothing new to see so Bob suggested we head inland to the Ojan Valley.

As we turned onto the road into the valley we slowed to watch a short-toed eagle flying low over the fields. A bit further on we reversed back as we thought we had passed a tawny pipit sat on the fence, but it turned out to be a crested lark! A couple of kilometres into the valley we pulled off the road by a small stream to check a small colony of monarch butterflies. Numerous swifts and hirundines were about. We logged common, pallid and alpine swift, barn and red-rumped swallow, and house martin. We heard a Cetti’s warbler and the calls of bee-eaters as they passed over.

We drove on through a landscape dominated by dozens (if not hundreds) of wind turbines to the Embalse (reservoir) Almodovar, where on a rough track we dug out the chairs from the boot and sat and ate a picnic lunch. Bob told us to check out the surrounding mountain ridges for Bonelli’s eagle, but we were not lucky enough to spot any. The huge reservoir held yellow and white wagtails, grey heron, mallard and cattle egret. Mostly griffon vultures passing over, but the occasional short-toed eagle and honey buzzard. We watched aghast as a griffon vulture flew right through the arc of a huge wind turbine. It was not hit by the blade, but the air turbulence almost turned this enormous bird upside down.

Our next destination was the Barbate Marshes, a large area of shallow lagoons near the coast. We drove around these on the rough track, stopping at various spots to scan the lagoons with our ‘scopes. There was plenty to see, including some new species for our list. David found a stone curlew, and an osprey flew over. A good count of 49 spoonbill and 46 Audouin’s gull. A great white egret was apparently unusual for this spot. A long list of waders consisted of redshank, greenshank, black-winged stilt, dunlin, knot, sanderling, curlew sandpiper, ringed plover, Kentish plover, grey plover and avocet. As well as the Audouin’s there were also yellow-legged and lesser black-backed gulls.

We moved on to the bridge over the River Barbate in hope of finding Caspian terns. We did not find any of these, but better there were a couple of Lesser crested terns, a rare annual vagrant from Africa. They perched on posts on the far side of the river along with Sandwich terns, so we never managed to get a good close view.

Finally we drove to the coastal town of Bolonia and headed up to the mirador (view point) 300m up in the Sierra de la Plata. The view to the beach at Bolonia and over the Med to Morocco was quite spectacular. We settled down in the hope of seeing white-rumped swifts. The antics of the breeding griffon vultures high on the crags above us fascinated us while we waited for the swifts to show, and a lone blue rock thrush showed for a while. It goes without saying that the skies above had many passing raptors (honey buzzard, booted eagle, black kite) and dozens more bee-eaters. Sadly, the swifts did not show up.

We had dinner at a restaurant frequented by the Tarifa surfing crowd – the three of us were probably more than twice the age of any of the other clientele!

Bob's Day 6 Blog