Majorca 2018 - The Sequel

Only me!!!

And this is a picture of???????????

  

Checking on my mobile phone whilst we were away, I was pleased to see that Anonymous from Portugal had added an interesting comment/report on his Portugal sightings, to my blog of 27^th May. If you get my column by direct mail, you may like to log back into my web site and have a look at the 2 comments on May 27, including the regular contribution from Slim Bridge.

As you will have realised from my previous blog entry, we love the Picafort Park, and it is clearly popular with guests who return year after year. We heard of one couple who had visited 40 times, and another couple we know (The Hoff and Betty Boo) had just enjoyed their 21^st holiday. We are on a lowly 6^th.

Sobriquets such as the ones above are usually given by the Entertainment team, who provide names THEY can remember. Amongst friends that we meet, there have been John Wayne, Scary Mary, The Hat or The Colonel (2 titles I have used) Mary has been Merry Xmas, and there is also Matt Munro, Will I am, G-F. This year we had a Dangerous Dave, Rob Roy & Jenny Wren.

Back to the birds and, following my report of what I see as my private(!!) hotel nature reserve, the other place to visit is of course Albufera, which I managed to visit 3 times this month. Towards the end of the holiday, the weather really hotted up, so the first visit, on foot at 8.45am turned out to be the best time to enjoy good light without excessive heat.

On my first visit, as usual Cattle & Little Egrets and Night Herons were squabbling in their usual breeding area, and 3 Nightingales were heard AND seen along the path to the visitor centre.  I can just stand and listen for ages to their huge range of wonderful musical phrases.

And my early start was rewarded with an Osprey drifting across the reeds to find some open water areas.

Despite the obvious lack of any recent rain, the dry mud revealed some very juvenile Avocets, Black Winged Stilts and Kentish Plovers. Surprisingly, and for the first time for 7 years, 7 Flamingos were at Singleton hide. Also, there was a bedraggled Spanish Sparrow, only bedraggled because he had enjoyed a good wash! Final goodie before I headed back to the hotel for the pre-lunch libation, was a Squacco Heron in the reeds.

The Second trip was with Chrissie and 14 other guests. A very thin Purple Heron took off from the canal giving good views, but as we started our walk that was eclipsed by 3 sightings of Glossy Ibis. One of the birds seemed to circle round us, so that even without bins the large curved beak was very visible. 

We clearly saw Cattle Egrets conveniently on the back of cattle, and a Purple Galinule feeding 2 young!  Finally, a couple of turtles added to the wildlife sightings.

For my 3^rd outing I wanted to try and get to an observation platform a bit off the main area, so I decided to hire a bicycle from the hotel for the morning. Good decision, and having navigated the route with the least hills, I was soon enjoying views of up to 7 Bee Eaters on the power lines, and watching their forays into the air, to take out bees. Just what I wanted to see!

Strangely, the platform overlooked some pink effluent settling ponds, and when a Common Tern flew low over the water, the strong light reflection made the feathers look pink! Oh for a camera.. that would have confused the experts. 

The only other sighting of note during the holiday was at the old town of Alcudia, a town with many very old stone-built buildings, affording excellent nesting facilities for Swifts. On Sunday the market day, the birds could be seen wheeling amongst the buildings and screaming constantly. Coupled with my knowledge of their life style, it’s not surprising that Swift rates as my Number 1 species.

We have Cyprus and Belgium yet to look forward to, but I know that neither will give me the birding adrenalin that Majorca does, so we will return to Majorca. 40 species for a casual holiday bird-wise added 14 to my 2018 world list, now on 185.

Did you guess what the picture was?   It was in fact a very nice Fathers’ Day gift from my daughter and son-in law, and the nest house is now on my garden fence. It is in the hands of Frank Innes my property letting agent – newlywed Blue Tits get a special deal!

Happy birding.