I have just found this forum and wondered if it is a good place to post my latest sightings? I live in Guardamar del Segura which is on the Costa Blanca 20K South of Alicante. My apartment overlooks the Rio Segura which is one of the three rivers in Spain that flow all year round.
The mouth of the Segura is a bird sanctuary for about 1k from the sea to the N332 road bridge upstream. The river itself is fairly small because of all the water extraction that takes place upstream. The river is edged by flat floodplain about 200 metres across which is filled with the growth of Spanish Reed, a cross between grass and bamboo. This stuff grows to a height of about 4.5 metres and has to be cut down every year.
We have a resident population of Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Coots, Moorhens, Shags, Cormorants and various Gulls. The Segura is the first fresh water encountered by migrants flying from Africa so we see a great many migrants in early and late seasons.
I used to go bird spotting in UK but never into twitching, I never saw enough "brown jobs" to be able to identify them properly. (It was either a sparrow - or not a sparrow, if you know what I mean). Here there are so many birds around that I am slowly learning to identify them properly.
In the past week on the nearby rough ground I have identified a Red Backed Shrike, a Great Grey Shrike, Hoopoe, Spotless Starling, Crossbill, Cerin and Citril Finch, Reed Bunting, Nightingale, Black Redstart and several others. We get some interesting visitors passing through, in late Autumn we had a pair of Purple Gallinules that stayed about three weeks, on Sunday 13th December there was a male Arctic Goose on the bank in front of my apartment nearly all day. (I got several pics).
This area is renowned for the saline lakes with their Flamingoes and the extensive bird reserves, it is a bird watchers paradise.
Regards, Tony
The mouth of the Segura is a bird sanctuary for about 1k from the sea to the N332 road bridge upstream. The river itself is fairly small because of all the water extraction that takes place upstream. The river is edged by flat floodplain about 200 metres across which is filled with the growth of Spanish Reed, a cross between grass and bamboo. This stuff grows to a height of about 4.5 metres and has to be cut down every year.
We have a resident population of Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Coots, Moorhens, Shags, Cormorants and various Gulls. The Segura is the first fresh water encountered by migrants flying from Africa so we see a great many migrants in early and late seasons.
I used to go bird spotting in UK but never into twitching, I never saw enough "brown jobs" to be able to identify them properly. (It was either a sparrow - or not a sparrow, if you know what I mean). Here there are so many birds around that I am slowly learning to identify them properly.
In the past week on the nearby rough ground I have identified a Red Backed Shrike, a Great Grey Shrike, Hoopoe, Spotless Starling, Crossbill, Cerin and Citril Finch, Reed Bunting, Nightingale, Black Redstart and several others. We get some interesting visitors passing through, in late Autumn we had a pair of Purple Gallinules that stayed about three weeks, on Sunday 13th December there was a male Arctic Goose on the bank in front of my apartment nearly all day. (I got several pics).
This area is renowned for the saline lakes with their Flamingoes and the extensive bird reserves, it is a bird watchers paradise.
Regards, Tony
