Day 3 - 15th Feb - Crested Coots at Espera - at last!

Our plan for today was to drive up into the Alcornocales and head on over towards Grazalema. However, we quickly discovered that, although the wind was fairly modest in the village, 10 km into the mountains it was a howling gale! Time for a re-think!

Fortunately we were able to regroup and head off towards the Lagunas de Espera. It’s not an ideal route, but by cutting across country via Algar and Arcos, we reached the lagunas without wasting too much time. En route Tony got a wonderful shot of a Corn Bunting; a very scarce bird in the UK, but in Spain they’re very abundant birds. Unlike my last few visits, all three lagoons all held plenty of water. The first laguna (Laguna de Hondilla) remains disgracefully under managed and willow scrub looks set to choke the place unless checked. An early Sedge Warbler was singing in the scrub, but a Fan-lipped Orchid by the main track was more obliging! The main lake (Laguna de Zorilla) held more birds including White-headed Duck, Gadwall, R-c Pochard, Pochard, Shoveler & Teal. Potentially this is an excellent laguna for birds, but the lack of un-obscured viewpoints remains irritating! Even the ‘official’ viewpoint is now extensively blocked by trees. The final laguna (Laguna Dulce de Zorilla), though, came up trumps with two Crested (or Red-knobbed) Coots – the first I’d seen on this particular lagoon and only the second I’d seen on Espera lagoons. (As these were two necked collared birds on Laguna de Hondilla, I’ve never really counted them). The first bird, skilfully spotted by Jack, atypically paddled around well out of the usual reed-bound comfort zone of the species; naturally, it was at the far side of the lake! The nearer bird, of course, played to form and hugged the reeds. None-the-less all essential ID features could be noted with care; two prominent “strawberries” above a narrow slightly Y-shaped frontal shield, a more ‘gentle’ face, a bluish bill, scrawny neck and a rear ended hump! It's somewhere in the attached photo, honest!

Exiting from Espera lagoons by the “back way” I found, for the first time in my experience, that the Laguna de Pilon next to the road here actually contained water! In truth it only held a few Coots and Black-winged Stilts, but some of the other small lakes in the area clearly need investigation this year after the winter’s rains. After a pleasant coffee break at a nearby venta watching a suicidal jay-walking Crested Lark. From this angle the crest looks a bit spiky and it's hard to judge the exact nature of the the chest streakings, but the diagnostically longish bill with a well curved "droop snoot" upper mandible and a relatively straight lower mandible is an ID clincher!

We then cut across towards Lebrija and on towards Trebujena Marshes. We turned off northwards off A471 on a dirt track next to a small fenced off enclosure (c4 km west of the turning for Trebujena). Almost immediately we came across, rather surprisingly, a flock of 21 Kittiwakes; an unusual habitat for this handsome little gull and explained by the ‘wreck’ of this species in the area last month. Exploring the track as it headed north-westwards, we came across a superb wetland area that had 4 Wood and 15+ Green Sandpipers, a Spotted Redshank, 3 (or more) Ruff and a handful of Greenshank. Also in this area were two handsome Spanish ‘Yellow’ Wagtails – another early migrant. With one northward bound summer visitor ‘in-the-bag’, it was good to see a half-a-dozen or more wintering Hen Harriers (including a superb adult male) and a single Merlin. Other raptors included numerous Marsh Harriers, a couple of Buzzards and 4 Red Kites. A couple of kilometres further along the track a stately Black Stork was quietly feeding.

After running parallel to the main road (which lay hidden behind the distant low hills) the track swung back towards the A471 (and linking to the route described in Chiclana & Garzon). Here a large, very wet (paddy?) field harboured more Greenshank, a couple of Dunlin, 120+ Kentish Plover, c50 Little Stint, c600 Golden Plover, c220 Glossy Ibis , numerous Cattle Egrets , fewer Little Egrets, a single Great White Egret and hundreds of White Wagtails. The shallow pool was dotted with thousands of tiny white flowers, hundreds or sparklingly white egrets and Glossy Ibis. As the light angle changed the ibis went from dull black to amazing reddish birds with stunning iridescent bronzy-green wings! A fantastic sight!

ALL photos © Tony Morris
For more of Tony’s photos see :-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonymorris/collections/72157614157792303/