Coto Donana - Laguna de Acebuche

The Laguna was one of the best places we visited. It would have been worth it just for the Azure-winged Magpies which would come to bread thrown out in the picnic area. We saw them in lots of other places but this was the only one that offered close encounters.

As well as the picnic area there were seven north facing hides giving good lighting for photography, although we could have done with a few more birds to make the most of the facilities. There were also two more hides out to the west, the Coot hide and the Stork hide. They were a bit of a trek and when I got there I found both lagunas to be bone dry with the only birds in sight being a Blackbird, a Chaffinch and a very distant Stork on top of an electricity Pylon. Check with the visitors centre before you set out.

Ferruginous Duck

 We had our doubts on the Ferruginous Duck as it was in close proximity to a male Pochard. We thought perhaps Ferruginous x Pochard Hybrid but later, seeing it by itself and seeing the white patch on the upended tail, below, we settled for female Ferruginous.

The most common bird on the water was the Little Grebe. They were surprisingly noisy and quarrelsome but I suppose this is just a sign that breeding season is upon us.

Plenty of Larks around the site, this one a Thekla Lark.

Thekla Lark

Also reasonable views of two Purple Herons although both were sufficiently concealed to make a decent photograph impossible.

Purple Heron

Perhaps my best birds from the site, two Short-toed Treecreepers. I have to say that I was not totally convinced by the wing markings and I couldn't hear them calling but Collins informs me that the nearest "common" Treecreepers are about 500 miles to the north in the Picos mountains.

Short-toed Treecreeper

Lots of small birds around, particularly Black Redstarts and Stonechats but very few close enough for a picture.

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.

Coto Donana - Bonanza Saltpans

The main targets for the day were the Slender-billed Gulls at the  Bonanza Saltpans and the White-headed Ducks at the Laguna de Tarelo.  It involved a long journey back through Sevilla and down the eastern side of the Guadalquivir river.  There were a number of other sites in the area to visit if we found our targets early but, as happens, things did not go exactly to plan, although we did find both targets fairly easily.

The Slender-billed Gulls were on the saltpans and viewable from the main road just north of Bonanza. There were probably about forty in total and they were very easy to identify. The pinkish heads and long black bills showed well but their behaviour was also unusual. They stayed in tight groups and seemed to be involved in communal feeding. A rare and unusual gull and it was good to be able to get such clear views.

The White-headed Duck, probably eight to ten of them, were also where they were supposed to be on the Laguna de Tarelo but they were a long way off. You can just about identify them in the picture below.

Distant White-headed Ducks  -  Heavy crop

We checked out the route through the Algaida Pine forest without finding much other than a few distant Black Kites and Buzzards. We also checked a few of the pools up by the river but found little of interest. Running out of time we had to head for home but were left with the feeling that we could have spent a couple more days around the area.

Where did we go wrong? We decided to visit La Senuela to see the Stork Colony and then to follow the road down by the side of the Guadalquivir River to the Bonanza Saltpans. It all looked good at the start although it was a bumpy ride into La Senuela an old and seemingly abandoned church. The trouble was that we managed to flush most of the Storks and we should really have arrived in the afternoon when the lighting would have been better.

La Senuela

Moving on, the route along the river started off really well and we had good views of a few Night Herons although all were in varying levels of cover.

Night Heron

After having travelled about 20km the road started to deteriorate and we were at serious risk of grounding the car in trying to manoeuvre around some major potholes. In the end we had to give up and retrace much of the distance we had covered. We lost a lot of time and checking the maps afterwards we were probably only a kilometre short of hitting a good road. 

Odiel Marshes

The Odiel Marshes sounded too good to be true. Easy access, good selection of birds, excellent views from the road which runs through the heart of the area, and particularly good for photographers. We had to go and of course, it was too good to be true. It was worth the visit but we did not see the selection of birds we were hoping for, the light was poor and the road was closed blocking access to the last four or five kilometres of the peninsular.

Best bird of the day was undoubtedly this juvenile Osprey, blue ringed LHO, hatched 12th June 2017 at Aberfoyle Scotland. He is carrying a lot of bling and a backpack but still a great bird to see.

Perhaps I should start collecting pictures of GPS packs!

There was a good selection of waders around but nothing exceptional and no sign of the Red-knobbed Coot that we had been hoping for.

Curlew

Greenshank

We then spent the rest of the morning checking out a mixed Gull and Sandwich Tern flock before heading back to the Coto Donana. Unfortunately nothing close enough for a decent photograph.

Sandwich Terns, Audouin's, Lesser Black-backed, and a Kittiwake seated bottom left

Interesting ring information. As well as the Osprey we had two Spanish and three Portuguese ringed Audouin's and a ringed Sandwich Tern. Perhaps it is not common practice to report ring sightings in this area but I was surprised that none of the five Audouin's had been reported since hatching between three and five years ago.


Memory of the day, the flocks of birds we could see wheeling over the peninsular well beyond the road closure that stopped us. We could have walked but we had already experienced one session of torrential rain and there was no cover to be seen.