The trip was organised to some extent to introduce my pal David Hosking to the Coto Donana an area where his father Eric had with others influenced the setting up of the National Park in the 1950's. More of that at a later date.
We began east of the Guadalquivir river and based ourselves in Sanlucar de la Barrameda. We stayed with my good friend Javier Hidlago and his wife Paula. Javier makes the best sherry in the whole World but also knows a lot about the local birds and where to see them. He introduced us to some local ponds adjacent to market gardens which although a bit scruffy and polluted produced our best views of breeding White-headed Ducks and a Crested Coot identified because of its neck collar. They only have been marked in this way in this area. Little Bittern was also seen here with some ease.
We spent some time on the saltings and the area close to the river. Groups of Slender-billed Gulls and Kentish Plovers were most numerous but we also saw other wader including Curlew Sandpiper, Sanderling, Knot, Golden Plover and Turnstone on passage. Most interesting of the migrants were a group of 21 Caspian Terns. Large numbers of Avocets nested on the saltings with some Black-winged Stilts.
The salt marshes were alive with larks including Short-toed, Lesser Short-toed, Crested and the spectacular Calandra. Greater Flamingos were here and there and in some reedy pools we found our first small group of Marbled Ducks.
Whilst in this area we took some time in the mountains around Grazalema. Choughs are numerous here as well as swifts around the towns. We managed Alpine, Common and Pallid with ease but failed to find White-rumped here. Rock Buntings drinking at a water tank gave us some good photo opportunities and we found plenty of Griffon Vultures in the air.
Before moving on to the next part of our journey we spent some time at a coastal town to watch and photograph the only nesting Little Swifts in Europe.
Next I will talk about some of the birds we saw in Extremadura.
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