After spending our main summer holiday in the cool of the Arctic we fancied a week somewhere warmer and with a chance of a bit of birding.
We were able to get a good deal on Jet2 Holiday flying from Blackpool and staying in El Medano (Arenas Del Mar) on a half board basis with a weeks car hire, 22Kg of luggage each and seat at emergency exits (extra legroom) for just a fraction over £1000 in total.
We had asked for advice on where to stay and had mixed advice, with a friend who had been a few years ago saying that South was best for access to Golf Courses for migrants and good coastal sites for waders. We met 3 other birding couples while on our trip who were staying in Los Gigantes and one staying in Vilaflor, with hindsight we would probably have chosen somewhere further north but as daylight wasn't until about 7.45 you could get just about anywhere on the Island for morning birding without starting too early.
We used Clarke's Birds of the Atlantic Islands, A Birdwatchers Guide to the Canary Island and some trip reports on this site.
Day 1 - we left Blackpool ten minutes late at 07.10 and were with our luggage and hire car by 12.15. So we decided to drive to the hotel via the Golf Del Sur despite the fact it was in the heat of the day. We didn't see much as we just parked and had a little stroll around the edge of the course but we did get out first endemic the [B]Canary Island Chiffchaff[/B], other birds were Yellow legged Gull, Cattle Egret and some Fulvous Whistling Ducks with young of dubious origin.
We decide to drop the luggage off grab some lunch and then head into the mountains. On the way up to Vilaflor, I stopped for a Southern Grey Shrike and we quickly spotted African Blue Tit and Sardinian Warbler in the nearby shrub. Pigeon here were all feral or Rock Doves.
Next stop was the large Canarian Pine tree (Gordo), where we saw a Raven and Eurasian Collared Dove . It was then off to Las Lajas where surprisingly for a Friday afternoon we were the only visitors, we managed to see a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers near the bench we chose to sit at, then a family of Atlantic Canary came to eat some remnants of our nuts on the ground. I then saw a fleeting glimpse of what I thought was the Golcrest before seeing a distant Blue Chaffinch. Hoping to get better views we started to look for dripping taps or a pool of water. We set out for the toilet block but no sign there but as we were making our way back we noticed a warden had just arrived and was setting up a yellow hose from the hut nearest the toilets. We kept our distance as a few birds were starting to come down but could already see better views of Canary, Woodpecker and Chaffinch as they came closer. The warden spotted us and indicated to us to sit next to him by the hut (we just about made ourselves understood with our very poor Spanish and his few English words). We were treated to really close up few of a couple of families of Blue Chaffinch (12 birds), 8 Atlantic Canaries and 4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers . Only other sighting in an hour or so of watching was a Kestrel.
We left passed through Vilaflor about 18.00 and just about 4K down the road was some agricultural watering I spotted on the way up. I slowed where I hope something might be an low and behold there were 7 Barbary Partridges - unfortunately when we stopped the car and tried to get the window down for photography we spooked them so we were only able to look at a distance and then only 4 of the birds were visible. The rest of the drive back was pretty uneventful with just some Plain Swift seen in flight (but Sarah didn't see them and said that without a decent view I couldn't be certain they weren't Common Swift on passage) so I left them off the list.
We were able to get a good deal on Jet2 Holiday flying from Blackpool and staying in El Medano (Arenas Del Mar) on a half board basis with a weeks car hire, 22Kg of luggage each and seat at emergency exits (extra legroom) for just a fraction over £1000 in total.
We had asked for advice on where to stay and had mixed advice, with a friend who had been a few years ago saying that South was best for access to Golf Courses for migrants and good coastal sites for waders. We met 3 other birding couples while on our trip who were staying in Los Gigantes and one staying in Vilaflor, with hindsight we would probably have chosen somewhere further north but as daylight wasn't until about 7.45 you could get just about anywhere on the Island for morning birding without starting too early.
We used Clarke's Birds of the Atlantic Islands, A Birdwatchers Guide to the Canary Island and some trip reports on this site.
Day 1 - we left Blackpool ten minutes late at 07.10 and were with our luggage and hire car by 12.15. So we decided to drive to the hotel via the Golf Del Sur despite the fact it was in the heat of the day. We didn't see much as we just parked and had a little stroll around the edge of the course but we did get out first endemic the [B]Canary Island Chiffchaff[/B], other birds were Yellow legged Gull, Cattle Egret and some Fulvous Whistling Ducks with young of dubious origin.
We decide to drop the luggage off grab some lunch and then head into the mountains. On the way up to Vilaflor, I stopped for a Southern Grey Shrike and we quickly spotted African Blue Tit and Sardinian Warbler in the nearby shrub. Pigeon here were all feral or Rock Doves.
Next stop was the large Canarian Pine tree (Gordo), where we saw a Raven and Eurasian Collared Dove . It was then off to Las Lajas where surprisingly for a Friday afternoon we were the only visitors, we managed to see a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers near the bench we chose to sit at, then a family of Atlantic Canary came to eat some remnants of our nuts on the ground. I then saw a fleeting glimpse of what I thought was the Golcrest before seeing a distant Blue Chaffinch. Hoping to get better views we started to look for dripping taps or a pool of water. We set out for the toilet block but no sign there but as we were making our way back we noticed a warden had just arrived and was setting up a yellow hose from the hut nearest the toilets. We kept our distance as a few birds were starting to come down but could already see better views of Canary, Woodpecker and Chaffinch as they came closer. The warden spotted us and indicated to us to sit next to him by the hut (we just about made ourselves understood with our very poor Spanish and his few English words). We were treated to really close up few of a couple of families of Blue Chaffinch (12 birds), 8 Atlantic Canaries and 4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers . Only other sighting in an hour or so of watching was a Kestrel.
We left passed through Vilaflor about 18.00 and just about 4K down the road was some agricultural watering I spotted on the way up. I slowed where I hope something might be an low and behold there were 7 Barbary Partridges - unfortunately when we stopped the car and tried to get the window down for photography we spooked them so we were only able to look at a distance and then only 4 of the birds were visible. The rest of the drive back was pretty uneventful with just some Plain Swift seen in flight (but Sarah didn't see them and said that without a decent view I couldn't be certain they weren't Common Swift on passage) so I left them off the list.