Coto Donana - The Jose Valverde Visitors Centre Loop

We did the loop twice. This is a 60km round trip from El Rocio to the start of the loop then about 50 Km on pot-holed and dirt track roads. Hard work but even in heavy rain the roads were all passable and there were a lot of good birds to see.

Black Kites, Buzzards, Black Redstarts, and Iberian Grey Shrikes on the way in from El Rocio. We also saw Woodchat Shrikes but couldn't get the picture.

Black Kite

Buzzard

Black Redstart

Iberian Grey Shrike

We did the eastern route via the Bombas de Casa pumping station the first day, returning by the same route. The second day we took the western route going via the Hato Raton Farm and then coming back on the eastern route.

My advice would be to give the western route a miss. It was mostly industrial scale farming and all the ditches had recently been dredged with the soil dumped back on the canal side vegetation and reeds. There was very little to see other than one stranded motorist that we had to stop to help. It's a bit like being in the outback.

Good views of White Storks, Spoonbills, Black Stork, and Black-tailed Godwits alongside the Arroyo de la Ciguens.

Spoonbills

Black Stork

We had two or three encounters with a Black-winged Kite and on one of the occasions with a pair of them, at the start of the eastern loop. A life tick for me but he really didn't want his picture taken. I also managed to overexpose the only clear shots that I had. The best of the rest is shown below.

Black-winged Kite

Much confusion was then caused by going back to the location on the last day of the holiday and photographing the bird below, hunting on the same strip of land. Sad to say, it wasn't until I got home that I noticed the yellow eye. The old problem, too busy trying to get the photograph and not seeing the bird that is in front of me. In my defense, it does look a bit like a Black-winged Kite and it was in the right location.

Hen Harrier

Hen Harrier

Buzzard

Glossy Ibis

Corn Bunting

Common Crane

Flamingos in the rain

Flamingo at the Jose Valverde Visitors Centre

Green Sandpiper

Griffon Vulture

Squacco Heron

Hoopoe

Hoopoe

There are a group of derelict holiday homes about 5km from the Visitors Centre. They are marked as Choza de Huerta Tejada on the map. It is worth stopping here to look for the colony of Lesser Kestrels based around the buildings. Although you will need to brush up on your identification skills as there are also a couple of "common" Kestrels in the same area.

Lesser Kestrel

Lesser Kestrel

Lesser Kestrel

Lesser Kestrel

I also had a Subalpine Warbler on the fence in front of these buildings but the photograph is not worth showing.

Marsh Harrier

Purple Swamphen

We also found a couple of small flocks of Spanish Sparrows on the way back. They seemed to be mostly females but there was one good looking male present although he was difficult to photograph.

Spanish Sparrow

It was a couple of long days being shaken about in the car but you felt that there was still a lot more to see. The Black-winged Kite deserved having a day dedicated to it in order to get that definitive picture but time is all too short.

Black Stork

We had a good day out on Tuesday although I did not come back with many pictures. First stop was the Little Common Recreation Ground near Cooden to look for the Black Stork. Research of recent sightings had shown that it often did a flyover of the recreation ground between eleven and eleven thirty in the morning but just to be on the safe side we were in place and waiting before nine o'clock.

This was easy birding, sitting on a park bench exchanging stories whilst having an early lunch and occasionally scanning the sky. Sure enough at about 11.15 the Stork was spotted away in the distance. It did a few circles gaining height and then drifted westward coming right over the top of our park bench.

Some of the locals have had spectacular close ups when it has landed in their gardens or on one of the local roads. That did not happen for us but I was happy to come away with a recognisable record shot and a life tick for this country.

Black Stork

By eleven thirty we were wondering what to do with the rest of the day. As we were halfway to Dungeness we decided to press on and see what it had to offer.

Initially it looked very good. There were Black Terns and White-winged Black Terns reported on the ARC Pit. An Icternine Warbler near the visitors centre and a Black-necked Grebe from the Makepeace Hide.

The Black Tern was easy if a bit distant but we could not get a clear view of the White-winged Black Terns.

Black Tern

A quick check around the visitors centre was also disappointing. There were a number of people looking for the Icterine Warbler and there were various claims for having seen it earlier that morning but I could see nothing that would convince me that it was still there. My second Icterine dipped in a week.

Then I made a bit of a mistake. For some reason I thought that I had already seen a White-winged Black Tern earlier this year so Dave and I split up with Dave going to look for the tern and me chasing a Black-necked Grebe that I needed for a year tick. We both succeeded in our quests but it was only when I got back to the ARC hide, to be told that the Tern had disappeared after having shown well, that the doubts started to creep in. Sure enough when I got home and checked, my sighting had been in the previous year.

It was good to have the Black-necked Grebe but on balance the Tern would have been better. Worse still the Grebe was so far away that it was difficult to get a picture.

Black-necked Grebe (500mm lens 1.4 converter and 1.6 multiplier in camera)

Heavy crop of the above.

We waited a while, during which we got good views of a Bittern on the far side of the pit, then drove down and checked the southern end, but the Terns were nowhere to be seen, so we headed for home.

It took nearly four hours with road works at Bexhill delaying us for three quarters of an hour, two separate crashes on the A27 causing tailbacks and delays for a single lane at Shoreham caused by the recent air crash. All the way home my doubts on having seen the White-winged Black Tern this year were growing as was the sense of having missed a good bird.

Still I had the Black Stork so it had to be counted as a good day.