pandachris
Well-known member
I'm really here for castells (human towers) but I should get a bit of birding done including a full day on the Ebro Delta on Monday, dependent upon how well the castellers diada for Santa Ursula in Valls goes on Sunday.
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A bit of birding in southern Catalunya (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter pandachris
- Start date
pandachris
Well-known member
20/10/17
There was a.distant ring-tailed harrier over Reus airport but I was getting the car sorted out and of course it was gone by the time I got to my binoculars.
Lunch at the Restaurant Catalunya in Santes Creus was followed by dozens of Hawfinches in the trees behind the restaurant. I've not seen them here before so presumably migrants.
After that, a wander around the pleasant and deserted Ruta de Barraques de Pedra Seca near El Pla de Santa Maria. Lots of Jays, Chaffinches and Linnets, Sardinian Warblers, Blackcaps and a small flock of Mistle Thrushes. Three Swallows over as well. Only about 25 species for the day. Hopefully I'll get a couple of hours in tomorrow morning.
There was a.distant ring-tailed harrier over Reus airport but I was getting the car sorted out and of course it was gone by the time I got to my binoculars.
Lunch at the Restaurant Catalunya in Santes Creus was followed by dozens of Hawfinches in the trees behind the restaurant. I've not seen them here before so presumably migrants.
After that, a wander around the pleasant and deserted Ruta de Barraques de Pedra Seca near El Pla de Santa Maria. Lots of Jays, Chaffinches and Linnets, Sardinian Warblers, Blackcaps and a small flock of Mistle Thrushes. Three Swallows over as well. Only about 25 species for the day. Hopefully I'll get a couple of hours in tomorrow morning.
pandachris
Well-known member
Also lots of Red Admirals and Clouded Yellows and some early bats around my Valls hotel as I write this.
pandachris
Well-known member
21/10/2017
The road to hell is paved etc. etc.
I was thinking of a 6 o'clock start which would have been a complete waste of time because it is still dark at 7:30 but the practice went on until about 2:30 and then there's that horrible wall back from Valls centre to Hotel Class so I let myself have a lie in then went to the little wetland reserve at the Valls side of the Poligon Industrial of Pla de Santa Maria, about 5 minutes drive. It's call Aiguamolls de Pla de Santa Maria, I think. There were lots of birds but it was difficult to get on some of them. I assumed that the hefty warbler looking things crashing about in the reed bed were Great Reed Warblers. There was a Woodlark singing constantly. A Sub-Alpine Warbler sat out nicely for a while and a Water Rail called from cover as did plenty of Cetti's Warblers. Not much else of note although it's not an awful place to visit. A large frog was frightened by a small snake, possibly Viperine, although I only actually saw the back end of it slithering away.
Satnav took me down an unnamed road on the opposite side of the A-7 to Altafulla at the Altafulla turn off when I was looking for the free parking by Tarragona cemetery (parking in the centre is very expensive and often hard to find). I stopped at the sign for "Depuradora" because it looked quite birdy and got my best ever view (almost touching distance) of Crested Tit.
Small numbers of Swallows migrating over Tarragona but not much else. We helped Sant Cugat during the castells diada which went very well.
The road to hell is paved etc. etc.
I was thinking of a 6 o'clock start which would have been a complete waste of time because it is still dark at 7:30 but the practice went on until about 2:30 and then there's that horrible wall back from Valls centre to Hotel Class so I let myself have a lie in then went to the little wetland reserve at the Valls side of the Poligon Industrial of Pla de Santa Maria, about 5 minutes drive. It's call Aiguamolls de Pla de Santa Maria, I think. There were lots of birds but it was difficult to get on some of them. I assumed that the hefty warbler looking things crashing about in the reed bed were Great Reed Warblers. There was a Woodlark singing constantly. A Sub-Alpine Warbler sat out nicely for a while and a Water Rail called from cover as did plenty of Cetti's Warblers. Not much else of note although it's not an awful place to visit. A large frog was frightened by a small snake, possibly Viperine, although I only actually saw the back end of it slithering away.
Satnav took me down an unnamed road on the opposite side of the A-7 to Altafulla at the Altafulla turn off when I was looking for the free parking by Tarragona cemetery (parking in the centre is very expensive and often hard to find). I stopped at the sign for "Depuradora" because it looked quite birdy and got my best ever view (almost touching distance) of Crested Tit.
Small numbers of Swallows migrating over Tarragona but not much else. We helped Sant Cugat during the castells diada which went very well.
pandachris
Well-known member
I don't know if anyone is taking an interest in this real time but I've just found a Bluethroat at Riet Vell in the corner of the field on the left just by the hide. Quite pleased as only the 3rd I've seen.
pandachris
Well-known member
Just in case, I returned about 4 hours later and found presumably the same bird in the same spot. There's a row of tall reeds at the back of the field, before you reach the hide. On your left as you walk along there is a row of taller 'grass' on along a slight mound. The bird was in area where the mound reaches the reeds.
Cracking day, loads of good birds. I'll write it up after I get home.
Cracking day, loads of good birds. I'll write it up after I get home.
Nice one
pandachris
Well-known member
22/10/2017
Diada de Santa Ursula in Valls.
I was in the car before 07:30 and 5 minutes late passed the Aiguamolls de Pla de Santa Maria. It was still dark so I didn’t stop and 4 minutes later I was at the turn off for the Ruta de Barraques de Pedra Seca. It was still dark, so I drove slowly down the mainly single track road to the car park, hoping to perhaps come across some nocturnal mammals on their way to bed. No luck. It was beginning to get light by the time I parked but it was 12C and windy (in other words, it was cold). I went for a short stroll but the cold was a bit much and as far as I could tell there were only Robins awake. I gave up and dropped in at the wetland on the way back. It seemed much quieter than the day before. Perhaps it was just too early and too grim. However I did notice a lot of passerines overhead. There was a sizeable passage going on. Chaffinches. Linnets and Meadow Pipits in their thousands, generally in flocks of 5 to 50, often with only seconds between flocks. I stopped for petrol on the way back to the hotel and there were flocks going over there, too, about 4-5 kms away and after I’d got into costume I walked into town at about 10:00, by which time the weather had improved considerably and I noted a few more flock, stragglers?, then too. Even though I spent a lot of time looking up during the diada, I don’t think I noticed a single bird that wasn’t a pigeon.
Diada de Santa Ursula in Valls.
I was in the car before 07:30 and 5 minutes late passed the Aiguamolls de Pla de Santa Maria. It was still dark so I didn’t stop and 4 minutes later I was at the turn off for the Ruta de Barraques de Pedra Seca. It was still dark, so I drove slowly down the mainly single track road to the car park, hoping to perhaps come across some nocturnal mammals on their way to bed. No luck. It was beginning to get light by the time I parked but it was 12C and windy (in other words, it was cold). I went for a short stroll but the cold was a bit much and as far as I could tell there were only Robins awake. I gave up and dropped in at the wetland on the way back. It seemed much quieter than the day before. Perhaps it was just too early and too grim. However I did notice a lot of passerines overhead. There was a sizeable passage going on. Chaffinches. Linnets and Meadow Pipits in their thousands, generally in flocks of 5 to 50, often with only seconds between flocks. I stopped for petrol on the way back to the hotel and there were flocks going over there, too, about 4-5 kms away and after I’d got into costume I walked into town at about 10:00, by which time the weather had improved considerably and I noted a few more flock, stragglers?, then too. Even though I spent a lot of time looking up during the diada, I don’t think I noticed a single bird that wasn’t a pigeon.
pandachris
Well-known member
23/10/2017
We didn’t achieve all the castells that we’d hoped for on the 22nd, although we did some impressive stuff. Our rivals also didn’t live up to their aspirations but they had the day on balance. One side-effect of this was that I was in bed early so I checked out of the hotel just after 6 and set off for the Ebro Delta. I arrived at Riumar not long after 07:30 and still too early to start birding. I walked along a boardwalk to the beach and got my first bird of the day, an Osprey silhouetted against the lightening sky. Not much else though, but I guess that days when I’ll be able to say “Osprey – first bird of the day.” will be few. Yet again it was too cold because of the wind to want to hang around so I decided to move away from the coastal strip to see if the wind was less insistent away from the coast. My first target was Canal Vell which information on-line suggested could be a good site but on the way ALL the birds in the delata decided to wake up. Just outside Riumar a mammal ran across the road so I stopped and got out for a look. I flushed a Purple Heron from just across the road and was pleased to see another Osprey over the back of the field, where a Night Heron was also obvious. I found the mammal, a domestic cat, and returned to my planned route. Within minutes it was properly light and there were tens of thousands of birds in the air. Glossy Ibises appeared in large flocks. There must have been thousands. Even more numerous were gulls and I identified an Audouin’s before I’d positively id’ed a Lesser Black Back and different heron species where in huge numbers. There were 6 Great White Egrets standing on one of those concrete sided canals that are often seen in the area but as I drove by, 31 flew out of the channel. Little Egrets were more numerous and there were plenty of Cattle Egrets, too, albeit fewer than the other too. To my surprise I didn’t see any Squacco Herons all day. When we visited the area for the 1st time in late October about 6 or 7 years ago, Squaccos were one of the most easily seen.
After a couple of abortive but enjoyable attempts I sort of found my way to the Canal Vell Mirador. The sign from the road was partially obscured and there was a ‘no entry’ sign at the end of the tiny car park that I decided to ignore, reasoning that it was meant for vehicles. The walk to the mirador was less than 10 minutes but when I got there, the 5 bottom steps were absent and there was a barrier with another ‘no entry’ sign. Someone definitely wants to discourage visitors.
Returning to the car I headed back to a bridge close to a wide, flat dusty area where some birds that had taken flight earlier had looked like small larks. I approached slowly this time and was soon looking at an odd mixed flock of Meadow Pipits (I couldn’t see any that looked more ‘interesting’) and Northern Wheatears. More surprising, on the flat area, was a pair of Stone Curlews. I wasn’t expecting these at all but it seem that the delta is just within their resident range.
By now the day was warming up nicely and the wind had abated. I was again regretting accidentally bringing my girlfriend’s shampoo instead of sun protection cream. I really have no need of shampoo. The sky was no longer filled with birds because most of them had settled down into numerous flooded padi, but there were still birds just about everywhere. I’d seen another Osprey but Marsh Harriers were much more numerous.
A short visit to the El Fangar area on the coast didn’t do much for my day list and it was still very windy so I eschewed the pleasure of staring at the sea for 30 minutes (a quick scan produced no shearwater, gannets, tropicbirds or whales) and I was fancying lunch at the Casa de Fusta near El Poblenou del Delta so I set off south of the river. I stopped first at Riet Vell where I was delighted to find the aforementioned Bluethroat, definitely my bird of the trip. Plenty of Purple Gallinules here as well, my only Hoopoe of the trip and a plethora of Black Redstarts which were pretty much everywhere I went today. Then I had a quick look at the bushes around the parking area at Eucaliptus Beach (not much) and the hide on the road to El Poblenou (lots of Greater Flamingoes, as expected). There’s a new observation platform where the road from Riet Vell meets the road between the beach and El Poblenou. There was an assortment of common waders on the sea-side of the road here but without a scope I didn’t have a chance of finding anything scarcer.
From here I took the back road to Casa de Fusta, avoiding El Poblenou where I had a splendid meal of smoked eel, carpaccio of wild duck and then duck with wild mushrooms and artichokes. With a cortado and a Crema Catalan it came to €48 which is far from the cheapest lunch I’ve had this year but I’d earned an hour’s break after a long morning. My word it was good.
The restaurant is right opposite an observation tower overlooking the main lagoon which is usually good for Red-Crested Pochard and sometimes Little Bittern but all the birds were too far away to ID. A Reed Warbler picking its way through the undergrowth below the tower gave me pause for thought. It had some sort of growth behind its eye that looked initially like a black “ear” until I got a better view.
There’s another tower on the road to El Poblenou and this was where are the pochards were. Next I explored some of the dirt roads between El Poblenou and Sant Carles de la Rapita, where I’ve seen a few good birds before. I finally caught up with Slender-billed Gulls on the road to the Mussel producers place but these were eclipsed by a Marsh Sandpiper in the same place. No Mediterranean Gulls at all, though. There was a Peregrine on a telegraph wire nearby and after this I checked out the new observation tower again, no different species there and returned to Riet Vell to see if I could relocate the Bluethroat, which I did easily.
By now it was after 17:00 and time to start thinking about my flight home so I set off, driving slowly where it was safe to do so, in case I might pick up a new species or two. On the AP-7 over the course of a couple of kilometres I saw three large raptors and a swallow (I’d seen a few earlier in the day but had expected more). One was a Honey Buzzard that was easy to see and identify as it looped across the motorway and back, one looked very like a Black Kite and the other was impossible to identify. Interesting to see several apparent migrants in the same small area. I’m not aware of anything particularly interesting to birds in the area.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable day’s birding, possibly the best I’ve had on my own. I don’t really have the articulacy to express just how good it was but with large numbers of birds, interesting species, some id problems, some attractive landscapes and great possibilities for lunch, it’s hard to beat. Hopefully we'll be back in 2018 for the Concurs de Castells in Tarragona, if not before.
We didn’t achieve all the castells that we’d hoped for on the 22nd, although we did some impressive stuff. Our rivals also didn’t live up to their aspirations but they had the day on balance. One side-effect of this was that I was in bed early so I checked out of the hotel just after 6 and set off for the Ebro Delta. I arrived at Riumar not long after 07:30 and still too early to start birding. I walked along a boardwalk to the beach and got my first bird of the day, an Osprey silhouetted against the lightening sky. Not much else though, but I guess that days when I’ll be able to say “Osprey – first bird of the day.” will be few. Yet again it was too cold because of the wind to want to hang around so I decided to move away from the coastal strip to see if the wind was less insistent away from the coast. My first target was Canal Vell which information on-line suggested could be a good site but on the way ALL the birds in the delata decided to wake up. Just outside Riumar a mammal ran across the road so I stopped and got out for a look. I flushed a Purple Heron from just across the road and was pleased to see another Osprey over the back of the field, where a Night Heron was also obvious. I found the mammal, a domestic cat, and returned to my planned route. Within minutes it was properly light and there were tens of thousands of birds in the air. Glossy Ibises appeared in large flocks. There must have been thousands. Even more numerous were gulls and I identified an Audouin’s before I’d positively id’ed a Lesser Black Back and different heron species where in huge numbers. There were 6 Great White Egrets standing on one of those concrete sided canals that are often seen in the area but as I drove by, 31 flew out of the channel. Little Egrets were more numerous and there were plenty of Cattle Egrets, too, albeit fewer than the other too. To my surprise I didn’t see any Squacco Herons all day. When we visited the area for the 1st time in late October about 6 or 7 years ago, Squaccos were one of the most easily seen.
After a couple of abortive but enjoyable attempts I sort of found my way to the Canal Vell Mirador. The sign from the road was partially obscured and there was a ‘no entry’ sign at the end of the tiny car park that I decided to ignore, reasoning that it was meant for vehicles. The walk to the mirador was less than 10 minutes but when I got there, the 5 bottom steps were absent and there was a barrier with another ‘no entry’ sign. Someone definitely wants to discourage visitors.
Returning to the car I headed back to a bridge close to a wide, flat dusty area where some birds that had taken flight earlier had looked like small larks. I approached slowly this time and was soon looking at an odd mixed flock of Meadow Pipits (I couldn’t see any that looked more ‘interesting’) and Northern Wheatears. More surprising, on the flat area, was a pair of Stone Curlews. I wasn’t expecting these at all but it seem that the delta is just within their resident range.
By now the day was warming up nicely and the wind had abated. I was again regretting accidentally bringing my girlfriend’s shampoo instead of sun protection cream. I really have no need of shampoo. The sky was no longer filled with birds because most of them had settled down into numerous flooded padi, but there were still birds just about everywhere. I’d seen another Osprey but Marsh Harriers were much more numerous.
A short visit to the El Fangar area on the coast didn’t do much for my day list and it was still very windy so I eschewed the pleasure of staring at the sea for 30 minutes (a quick scan produced no shearwater, gannets, tropicbirds or whales) and I was fancying lunch at the Casa de Fusta near El Poblenou del Delta so I set off south of the river. I stopped first at Riet Vell where I was delighted to find the aforementioned Bluethroat, definitely my bird of the trip. Plenty of Purple Gallinules here as well, my only Hoopoe of the trip and a plethora of Black Redstarts which were pretty much everywhere I went today. Then I had a quick look at the bushes around the parking area at Eucaliptus Beach (not much) and the hide on the road to El Poblenou (lots of Greater Flamingoes, as expected). There’s a new observation platform where the road from Riet Vell meets the road between the beach and El Poblenou. There was an assortment of common waders on the sea-side of the road here but without a scope I didn’t have a chance of finding anything scarcer.
From here I took the back road to Casa de Fusta, avoiding El Poblenou where I had a splendid meal of smoked eel, carpaccio of wild duck and then duck with wild mushrooms and artichokes. With a cortado and a Crema Catalan it came to €48 which is far from the cheapest lunch I’ve had this year but I’d earned an hour’s break after a long morning. My word it was good.
The restaurant is right opposite an observation tower overlooking the main lagoon which is usually good for Red-Crested Pochard and sometimes Little Bittern but all the birds were too far away to ID. A Reed Warbler picking its way through the undergrowth below the tower gave me pause for thought. It had some sort of growth behind its eye that looked initially like a black “ear” until I got a better view.
There’s another tower on the road to El Poblenou and this was where are the pochards were. Next I explored some of the dirt roads between El Poblenou and Sant Carles de la Rapita, where I’ve seen a few good birds before. I finally caught up with Slender-billed Gulls on the road to the Mussel producers place but these were eclipsed by a Marsh Sandpiper in the same place. No Mediterranean Gulls at all, though. There was a Peregrine on a telegraph wire nearby and after this I checked out the new observation tower again, no different species there and returned to Riet Vell to see if I could relocate the Bluethroat, which I did easily.
By now it was after 17:00 and time to start thinking about my flight home so I set off, driving slowly where it was safe to do so, in case I might pick up a new species or two. On the AP-7 over the course of a couple of kilometres I saw three large raptors and a swallow (I’d seen a few earlier in the day but had expected more). One was a Honey Buzzard that was easy to see and identify as it looped across the motorway and back, one looked very like a Black Kite and the other was impossible to identify. Interesting to see several apparent migrants in the same small area. I’m not aware of anything particularly interesting to birds in the area.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable day’s birding, possibly the best I’ve had on my own. I don’t really have the articulacy to express just how good it was but with large numbers of birds, interesting species, some id problems, some attractive landscapes and great possibilities for lunch, it’s hard to beat. Hopefully we'll be back in 2018 for the Concurs de Castells in Tarragona, if not before.
pandachris
Well-known member
A very quick, surprise birthday visit (surprise as in I got to the airport gate before I knew where we were going), again mainly for castells with limited birding opportunity and no binoculars. Few egrets but three species of, from the train between BCN and Sants station. A peregrine and a kestrel from the Don Candido Hotel in Terrassa this morning plus lots of serins.
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