The Ebro Delta, Catalonia, Spain (1 Viewer)

Well, just back from the airport tonight. No luck with the little crakes. I gave it a good try on three different days, commencing with Sunday 29th April. The last report in the reporting book in the hide was for 23rd April.

I did see a collar-ringed crested coot at El Garxal- quite possibly the same bird I saw at Canal Vell last May, I suppose.

The flooding of the rice fields seems to be a little late this year, they were opening the sluices in the first of them on 2nd May. This may have been the reason that the numbers of whiskered, black and gull-billed terns were much lower than I've noticed at the same time in the past two years when I've been to the delta.

I saw an adult Bonelli's eagle nearby yesterday. I was travelling down a track that starts as the Cami del Coll de la Mola on the C44 between Rasquera and El Perello. I followed it beyond the torre (at which point I've turned back in the past) and had an inkling from the condition of the track that it was well-used and that it was going to lead me somewhere near to L'Ampolla, so I followed my hunch. Near to its southern end, next to the road leading up to the windfarm the road runs along a rambla. Shortly after entering it I saw an adult Bonelli's eagle rising over the hill just west of the track.

Hi Alan

Yes, the flooding of the rice fields came very late this year, and so did the arrival of several of the breeding birds. I have just returned from two weeks in Andalucia, and it is great to finally see some water in the delta. I haven't been birdwatching there yet, but this afternoon I am off to check it all out Yesterday, as we were driving home from the train station, we saw a couple of farmers out seeding the rice, so everything should be green before long.

Sorry that you didn't see the crakes at Riet Vell. I was there on the 28th of April without luck, but the volunteers told me that the female had been seen on the 26th, so perhaps they have just switched to a more secretive (an optimist might even suggest breeding?!) behaviour...

I will keep you posted.

Best wishes,

Iben

P.S. Congratulations on the Bonelli's Eagle, most of the mountains surrounding the delta hold breeding pairs, so we are very fortunate in this area!

I had a very good trip, despite the almost wintry weather in the first week. An overnight stay in the Pyrenees added to the enjoyment. 180 species (provisional - I haven't checked the list properly yet) fot the fortnight. I'll post a trip report when I get time.

I saw a very interesting greater flamingo asleep at La Tancada. It was a deep orange colour, almost vermillion. I almost disregarded it as a dumped traffic cone at first until I realised it was a bird.

Hi Alan

I have somehow missed your last post until now. The Flamingo you saw has been here for almost a year now, and it is presumably a (no longer) captive bird of the American subspecies Phoenicopterus ruber ruber. Their stronger colouration makes them more attractive for zoos and animal parks.

Iben

Iben said:

Hi Alan

I have somehow missed your last post until now. The Flamingo you saw has been here for almost a year now, and it is presumably a (no longer) captive bird of the American subspecies Phoenicopterus ruber ruber. Their stronger colouration makes them more attractive for zoos and animal parks.

Iben

Click to expand...

That explains it. It was the same size as the other flamingos and was a deep vermillion, so I knew immediately it wasn't a lesser. When it eventually woke up it had the same bill colour and pattern as a greater flamingo. I've put a very poor heat-affected photo of it on my trip report in the vacations thread.

Thread revival

Time has flown, and suddenly it has been several months since I last updated you on the birds and happenings of the Ebro Delta. Obviously this doesn't mean that nothing's been going on here - anyhow, I'll skip the last months; the autumn migration, arrival of the wintering birds; the change in temperature, weather, and number of beach tourists, and get straight to the point: An above average Monday morning in the Ebro Delta :t:

This morning I got up early to join the team from the Ebro Delta Nature Park for the first day of the annual winter count of waterbirds, raptors, and other species of special interest. We set out from the head quarters in Deltebre just as the sun broke the thin layer of clouds, and the morning was absolutely beautiful. My group was assigned an area of rice fields in the northern part of the delta, and as always we were instructed to cover every square inch marked on our map. This is what I love most about the winter bird count: Devoting all my attention to a seemingly uninteresting piece of the delta, giving equal importance to Lapwings and Little Owls, and forsaking my usual ways around the place - for some reason my usual paths always seem completely unrecognizable on a map!?!

Grey Herons and Great White Egrets seemed to be present in almost every single field, usually accompanied by a number of Cattle and Little Egrets (these are counted at their roosting sites), whilst Lapwing was by far the most numerous shorebird of the day. Green and Common Sandpipers chased along channels, and in places the muddy fields seemed to come alive with flocks of Chaffinches, Reed Buntings, and Meadow Pipits. It always amuses me to see these passerines forage like little shorebirds, and I was quite happy that we were not expected to keep count of this myriad of birds! Hoopoes, Magpies, and Little Owls were added to the count sheet, and near the edge of our area we encountered no less than 14 White Storks, which is a relatively rare visitor in the delta. A Peregrine Falcon was spotted on the ground very close to the car, and luckily we did not scare it off - we just counted it! Three Merlins and lots of Buzzards, Marsh Harriers, and Kestrels later, we made our way back to Deltebre for lunch, happy to know exactly what had been present on our little patch this morning.

At this point, Cristian, who had been out all morning with a couple of Spanish birders, called us to give a brief review of his tour of the delta. One Pectoral Sandpiper , two Bewick's Swans, a Common Gull (not so common here!), four Richard's Pipits, an Osprey, and a handful of Spoonbills...but no Merlins, Little Owls, or White Storks. I guess you just can't have it all - not even here...

Crested Coot, Ebro and Llobregat

Alan Seaton said:

The Crested Coots were not released here in the delta, but occasionally one or two turn up here (with or without collar). There has been a release scheme in the Llobregat delta, and also in Valencia and Andalucia, but I think that all the projects have come to an end now. During the winter census this January we found one in Illa de Buda, but I don't know whether this bird is still around.

Click to expand...

We saw a collared one a few metres from the sluice gate at the bridge on El Clot on the 22nd December 2007. Beautiful bird but of course spoiled by the huge collar.

The re-introduced population at Cal Tet, Llobregat is certainly still being monitored but I don't know if they are releasing more birds. I see individuals there occasionally.

Happy New Year

The crested coot photo in the post above was the bird I saw at Canal Vell in 2006, posted just before my 2007 trip. I thought that it may have been a one-off, but I was surprised a short while later when I was in the Delta on 29th April 2007 to see a similar bird (possibly the same one - who knows?) near Riumar at the western end of El Garxal.

I've been making my arrangements for my trip to the Ebro for this spring, lateApril/early May again. Maybe I'll get the hat-trick.

By the way Iben, in one of those strange coincidences that occur now and again, my wife called me over to her computer last night and drew my attention to a spanish birding site she was looking at. It was yours and when I recognised the name I went back through the pages of this board to show her the posts from last year. I remarked at the time that there had been no posts since May and wondered what had happened. Within half an hour you had put up your new post! Eerie.

Hi Alan

I was probably cursing my internet connection when you and your wife looked through the thread - if Telefonica offered better reception here, I might even have added my post half an hour earlier to make everything even more eerie :eek!:

The Crested Coot currently present in the delta wears a white collar with the letters UT, and it has been seen here for at least three consecutive winters now. Have been told it was ringed and released in Valencia, but am still waiting for an official response. I don't remember seeing it during summer, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't stay here. Other individuals have also visited the delta (with and without collars), but this one has been seen much more frequently than any of the others. I can't make out the letters on your bird, but perhaps you were able to see the code in the field? Or can you see it on the original photo?

Thanks for your post and hope to meet you out here this spring!

Best regards,

Iben

P.S. The highlights of my counting carreer today were two wonderful Peregrines (one repeatedly hitting an apparently immortal Lapwing in the air, the other perched in a tree five metres from our car!), and a Brambling hanging out with the Chaffinches in the rice fields The hardest part of the day was trying to identify hundreds of egrets coming in to roost after sunset...ended up with at least 400 in the Little/Cattle-category, I'm afraid! They all just looked like flying ghosts flocking to the reeds o

The coot was far too distant to make any detail out on the neck-ring on each occasion that I saw it and heat-haze in 2007 made matters worse, so I cant help with the ID I'm afraid.

We'll be staying at Mora for a couple of weeks again this year, so I expect that I'll be at the delta for at least two or three visits. Lets hope your little crakes are more co-operative this time.

Regards

Alan

Alan Seaton said:

Lets hope your little crakes are more co-operative this time.

Click to expand...

Yep, let's see which one turns up this year We've been through all the 'common' ones now, so perhaps it's time for a really big rarity this spring?

Crested Coot

Iben said:

The Crested Coot currently present in the delta wears a white collar with the letters UT, and it has been seen here for at least three consecutive winters now. Have been told it was ringed and released in Valencia, but am still waiting for an official response.

Click to expand...

I have now received some reliable information about the Crested Coot (UT). It was released in the Llobregat Delta with 19 other birds in April 2003, but already in November 2003 it was seen for the first time in the Ebro Delta and has not been seen anywhere else since then. There are no reported sightings of the bird between March and November, but it has been seen here every winter since 2003.

Best regards,

Iben

Thanks for that Iben. I'll look out for it at the end of April when I'm back there.

It seems likely to me that the bird I saw on 29th April 2007 was this bird, although it was too distant to read the neck-ring, so unofficially and unconfirmed, it appears to have made it beyond March and into April.

Last day

Yesterday was officially the last day of the winter census in the Ebro Delta, and when the groups headed out in the morning mist we all agreed to meet up for lunch later on.

My group started at the Garxal lagoon, where we counted thousands of Coots, hundreds of Mediterranean Gulls, and relatively few grebes, herons, and shorebirds. The morning was rather dull, the sea calmer than ever, and even the ever-moving Kentish Plovers on the beach stood motionless among the Sanderlings. An easy day, we thought; perhaps even a slightly boring way to end the week :-C

But...our next stop was at Mas de la Bombita, a strictly private and very large finca with absolutely no entry unless you have a really good excuse to go there. It is kept as a hunting reserve by a hunter who only comes down a few times each year, and throughout the rest of the year it is a sacred haven for the birds of the delta - Agustín, the guard, makes sure of that! He looks (and is) friendly, but he does not like intruders of any kind!! Luckily he thought our excuse was one of the better ones, and he let us in with a smile and a friendly chat. The sun came out, the wind picked up, and that was when our easy morning came to an end! The rice fields were teeming with ducks, including masses of Teal, Wigeon, Pintail, Red-crested Pochard, Gadwall, and of course the ubiquitous Mallards, and we stood counting in one spot for almost an hour before agreeing on the final numbers. A group of 35 Spoonbills passed overhead, followed by a young Sacred Ibis, and they all settled in a field near the Bombita lagoon, where they were later joined by a group of another 14 Spoonbills. We continued our quest into this wonderful finca, and we were closely watched by a low-flying Booted Eagle when we stopped to admire the Sacred Ibis up close. No rings or other signs of a past in captivity on the Ibis, but who knows where this particular individual has come from!?!

Spotted Redshank, Green and Wood Sandpipers, and impressive numbers of Common Snipe and Lapwing, revealed themselves in the fields, along with Grey Herons and Great Whites, and a group of almost 200 Ruff were encountered in one of the smaller fields - a typical delta sighting; so much empty space and then suddenly hundreds of birds all squeezed in together. Lunchtime was getting nearer, and we reluctantly headed for the exit - any birder would be reluctant to leave this place! - without having seen the wintering Bewick's Swans. I don't know when I will return to Bombita, but in fact I am happy that the access is so limited - obviously the birds love the tranquility there, and this particular finca adds enormously to the delta's value as a bird's/birder's paradise the way it is!

We had lunch in the village of Els Muntells and later continued on to the tower at Migjorn/L'Alfacada to admire the duck spectacle at Illa de Buda. On the way there, and particularly once having climbed the steps to the top of the tower, we realised that this was a bad decision. The wind was now blowing at very high speed, all the birds were doing their best to find shelter and hide, and it was impossible to hold the scopes still even for a second. Home was the best place to go, and so we did...but on Monday we're at it again, this time counting gulls, gulls, and nothing but gulls (a group of birds which we have happily ignored these past days - except the rarer ones; numbers of Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls are almost frightening here in winter :eek!.

Provisional results from the winter census

The first analysis of the data from this winter’s waterbird count in the Ebro Delta suggests that the number of birds wintering in the delta has reached a new peak. Never before has Illa de Buda harboured so many wintering ducks, and never before have the flocks of shorebirds and coots been quite so large – at least not for the last 25 years! A total of more than 338 000 birds were registered during the census this year!

Every year since 1972, the staff at the Ebro Delta Nature Park have carried out standardized bird counts during the first half of January to assess the value of the delta as a wintering site for waterbirds. Bird numbers have always been high, but the results have never come out quite as impressive as this year’s. A total of 292 600 wintering waterbirds and more than 45 000 gulls were recorded, with record-breaking counts of both ducks and coots. Skulky birds such as Purple Gallinule, Common Moorhen, and Water Rail are not included in the census as numbers are too great and impossible to assess this way.

Mallard and Teal were the most numerous ducks this year with some 107 000 individuals between the two species (thus comprising more than half of the duck total), and no less than 32 000 Common Coot were present in the lagoons and bays of the delta this winter. Shorebirds were represented mainly by Lapwing and Dunlin, and constituted almost a quarter of the recorded birds (more than 65 000 individuals!). Herons, egrets, and flamingos, were also counted by the thousands, and lower numbers of large birds such as Crane, White Stork, and Bittern, helped bring the species total up to almost 100 – without including any of the wintering passerines! – and once again demonstrate the importance and value of the Ebro Delta as a wintering site for a great variety of birds.

:t:

Impressive numbers Iben. I'm pleased I wasn't counting the mallard,teal, lapwings and dunlins!

I see from Ricard Gutiérrez's site that a lesser flamingo was reported on a couple of occasions at Punta de la Banya. Did you pick this one up in your survey?

What is the current thinking on the status of lesser flamingo? They seem to be making more appearances in the records lately and I believe a pair bred successfully at Laguna de la Fuente de Piedra at Antequera last year. Are they all escapes, or is there a wild element to the reported sightings? (I saw one at Fuente de Piedra in 2004, so I have an interest).

Hi Alan

Yes, it can be quite stressful counting such large numbers - particularly when you're a perfectionist and prefer to count things one by one One day I was discussing with my group whether we were looking at 65 or 66 Flamingos in the Fangar Bay, and I was happy when we all agreed that there were in fact 66...however, the discussion later seemed rather pointless as the total number of Flamingos reached almost 9000 that day :eek!:

In fact, I was probably counting those 66 Flamingos on the northern side of the river when Ferran Blanc - one of the rangers in Punta la Banya - found the Lesser Flamingo among the 5500 Greater Flamingos (!!) in the salt pans. In the afternoon my group was sent there to count roosting Cormorants, and although we were practically surrounded by flamingos we did not spot the Lesser Flamingo.

As far as I know, the Lesser Flamingo is still on the Spanish E list, and it has bred on at least one occasion in Fuente de Piedra, like you said. It is also listed as a D species (i.e. a possible A species), but there is still no real proof regarding the origin of the individuals seen in Spain. Having read lots of Flamingo rings and later received the most incredible life histories, I would say that the Lesser Flamingo could well have arrived in Spain by following Greater Flamingos on their long-distance movements over the years, but of course this will never be known unless it is proven by ringing.

The Marabou Stork is considered in the same categories as the Lesser Flamingo, and this species has apparently been seen crossing the Strait of Gibraltar with White Storks (so I was told in Doñana) - so perhaps/hopefully further evidence of a wild origin will appear in the future!??

Best regards,

Iben

Thanks Iben.

Alan Seaton said:

Thanks for that Iben. I'll look out for it at the end of April when I'm back there.

It seems likely to me that the bird I saw on 29th April 2007 was this bird, although it was too distant to read the neck-ring, so unofficially and unconfirmed, it appears to have made it beyond March and into April.

Click to expand...

Seems that it didn't even make it into February this year...have just seen on the Birding Catalonia website that our Red-knobbed Coot (UT) has been seen in the Llobregat Delta since February 1st!

crested coot release numbers

Iben said:

...about the Crested Coot (UT). It was released in the Llobregat Delta with 19 other birds in April 2003, but already in November 2003 it was seen for the first time in the Ebro Delta and has not been seen anywhere else since then. There are no reported sightings of the bird between March and November, but it has been seen here every winter since 2003.

Click to expand...

Hi guys

I think the number, according to Ferran at Llobregat was 20 (12 males and 8 females).

I saw the bird at Pont de Traves on 22nd December 2007 and 10 January 2008, just for the record.

All the best