What a marvellous day in the woods of the National Park above the Venta de Zafarraya on the way to Alhama de Granada. The car temperature may have said "2C" but it felt beautifully warm in the sunshine. Eric and I with our respective wives, Pat and Jenny, saw just about everything we could expect to see - other than Blue Rock Thrushes.
Hardly off the road and we were into birds, especially lots of Rock Buntings, then Serin, Greenfinches, Chaffinches and, even better, Rock Sparrows. Mistle and Song Thrush, Southern Gray Shrike, hovering Kestrels an, before long, many sightings of both Green and Great Spotted Woodpecker. Just when we thought we had finished along came the boys in blue with white rumps - the scavenging Jays.
Meanwhile, looking closer within the trees we had great views of most of the tit family; Great, Blue, Coal and Long-tailed. Also with the were Firecrests and we did manage to see at least two Nuthatches. And just as we were returning to the car a distant, clear sight of a soaring Buzzard.
Returning on another track that brought us out at the back of the small lake above Alhama, we were greeted with the usual huge number of Coots accompanied by a large number of Pochard, a small gathering of Shoveler and Little Grebe plus at least five Cormorant.
All in all marvellous day's birding, the more-so as Eric and I will probably not be meeting up again until mid-April. What a way to go! Let';s hope we get some good feed-back from Costa Rica and I will do my best to send some Floridian birds - Micky Mouse and pals excluded!
Birds seen:
Little Grebe, Cormorant, Shoveler, Pochard, Buzzard, Kestrel, Coot, Red-legged Partridge, Rock Dove, Collared Dove, Thekla Lark, White Wagtail, Crag Martin, Green Woodpecker, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Robin, Black Redstart, Stonechat, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush, Nuthatch, Short-toed Tree Creeper, Southern Grey Shrike, Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Firecrest, Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Serin, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Linnet, House Sparrow, Rock Sparrow, Rock Bunting, Spotless Starling, Jay
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