Allen S. Moore
Well-known member
I recently had my tenth ever holiday on La Palma, the north-western of the Canary Islands. The weather was bad for most of the fortnight. Indeed, quite a few flights into the island were cancelled. It rained for much of the time, especially during the first week. It was also quite windy from the south.
All this affected my birding, but despite the weather I still managed to see 38 bird species (average previous 4 visits 41, range 33-48). One thing which helped my birding was that I was given what must have been the best room in the hotel for sea watching. Even when the weather was poor I could zip up my coat, pull my woolly hat down over my ears and watch from the balcony, which looked east and north out to sea.
I was first attracted to La Palma by the choughs, the same species which we have in the Isle of Man and a very isolated population, about 800 km from the nearest birds in Morocco. The largest gathering that I saw this holiday was of 85 feeding in my favourite area for watching the species in the middle part of La Palma. The nesting season had started when I was there. In March 2017 I found a pair nesting in a site between Los Cancajos and Santa Cruz. They were there this time, too, and I saw a bird standing on the nest just before the end of my holiday.
The most unusual sightings of the holiday were out at sea. I saw kittiwakes on 5 days, mostly from the hotel. The first were 7 flying S on the 27th, followed by single birds on each of the next 4 days. The birds of La Palma are very much under-recorded (I am by far the main contributor for the island on eBird, for example), and the last time that a kittiwake was seen around La Palma was probably decades ago. They were my first kittiwakes in Spain. I also saw shearwaters of 3 species. Numbers of Cory's shearwaters weren't as consistently high as in the NE winds of March 2017, but I saw them every day this time in numbers ranging from 2 to 200+. I also saw 1 Barolo (little) and 7 Manx shearwaters.
The Cory's shearwaters were often associating with another of the highlights of the holiday, dolphins, which I saw on 12 days out of 14. I probably became known as 'dolphin man' by the end of the holiday, the number of people who I pointed them out to. One day I told the lass who was cleaning the room about the dolphins, speaking to her in Spanish, but she seemed to misunderstand a bit, saying "Tazacorte", a small port from which whale and dolphin watch trips go on the opposite side of the island. "¡No, aqui!" I said. The next morning the dolphins were just off the rocks behind the hotel. I returned to my room and met the cleaner in the corridor. She had seen the dolphins and was "enchanted", she told me.
As well as choughs and sea birds, La Palma has a few winter migrants and some endemic bird species. Most of the endemics also occur in some or all of the other Canary Islands, as well as Madeira in a few cases and the Azores (canary). Waders frequent a few wetland sites around the island, both coastal and inland. Probably the best is the area known as Las Martelas, an area of irrigation pools in the west of the island where Robert Burton and I saw an avocet last year, perhaps only the second record for the island.
There is an area of rock pools next to the airport, which is just south of Los Cancajos. When the weather was bad, the short bus ride there allowed me to have a change of scene without getting too wet. Waders there never exceeded about 10 in total, albeit of 4 or 5 species, including 1 or 2 grey plovers, always good to see. A common redshank which turned up part way through my holiday was more unusual for La Palma. I sometimes also saw waders from my balcony, namely 1 or 2 whimbrel, turnstone and common sandpiper.
At the southern tip of the island, on land added by the volcanic irruption of 1971, are salt pans, and they are also good for waders, although on my visit this time I only saw two, single turnstone and common sandpiper. However, when I got out of the bus a Eurasian spoonbill flew over, quite a rare species for La Palma. It appears not to have stayed, unless it doubled back to Las Martelas. The bus route to the salt pans passes Hotel Teneguía Princess, and when the bus turned in there on the way back there was a cattle egret standing on the roof of a car parked just up the road. Hotel guests were walking past all the time, and the cattle egret flew just across the narrow road and stood on a low wall, presumably to the surprise of the passers by.
I didn't do so well with all the endemic species this time. The rarest are two Canarian endemic pigeon species, both of which breed on La Palma. I saw more than ever of one of the species, called the laurel pigeon. This time, I even saw one from the bus heading up the north-eastern side towards the start of the walk to the rain forest at Los Tilos, which is what is often a hot walk of 4-5 km away up Barranco del Agua, which translates into English as 'gorge of the water'. It has the only HEP station in the Canaries. I went to Barranco del Agua about half way through my holiday but didn't get far, having good birding in the first km or so. I planned to go back again but didn't manage it because of the weather. Still, I saw another 9 laurel pigeons on that walk, as well as the only common chaffinch of the holiday. La Palma has a particularly distinctive subspecies of the chaffinch, although the bird which I saw, which was only about 100-200 metres from the main road, was a female. The best place to see the chaffinches is round a small restaurant in the depths of the forest at Los Tilos, and the area also has Bolle's pigeons (the other endemic pigeon species), African blue tits, (Tenerife) goldcrests and robins, none of which I saw or heard this holiday. I have put that down to advancing age stopping me walking as far!
On the last whole day on La Palma I caught the bus west to the area where I often go watching choughs. The island is split by a N-S ridge which doesn't dip below about 1400 metres in height. When I set off that morning it was sunny in the east, but when the bus emerged from the tunnel in the west the cloud was down and it was raining. I spent the next 45 minutes in the excellent visitor centre. It was still raining a bit when I set off walking, but the rain stopped after a while and the cloud rose a bit. The choughs were about, and I also saw 7 Berthelot's pipits, an endemic species for which this seems to be the best area on La Palma, as it is for the choughs.
I usually do a 'circular' walk when I am there, and when I was about halfway round this time I took a slight detour up a side road. While walked up there I noticed a kestrel flying low along the other side of the road. Kestrels on La Palma mostly eat lizards, which live in the walls made of chunks of volcanic rock. The kestrel checked the wall opposite without success, and went down in the shallow concrete drain, walking along all hunched. It seemed to find something to eat down there, lifting its head chewing at one stage. Then it hopped up onto the low wall and sat facing me. We sat like that for a few minutes. The kestrel didn´t seem to be bothered by me lifting my binoculars for a closer look, just staring at me with those big dark eyes rimmed with yellow. Sometimes it moved its head up and down as if checking that strange object opposite! A couple of walkers came down the road towards us, but they took a detour to avoid disturbing the bird. It was only when a car was driven up the road that the bird flew and the magic was lost.
Once the kestrel flew I checked the drain for food (kestrel food, that is!). All I found was a millipede, but I suppose that the kestrel had eaten whatever was edible before it had its rest on the wall.
All this affected my birding, but despite the weather I still managed to see 38 bird species (average previous 4 visits 41, range 33-48). One thing which helped my birding was that I was given what must have been the best room in the hotel for sea watching. Even when the weather was poor I could zip up my coat, pull my woolly hat down over my ears and watch from the balcony, which looked east and north out to sea.
I was first attracted to La Palma by the choughs, the same species which we have in the Isle of Man and a very isolated population, about 800 km from the nearest birds in Morocco. The largest gathering that I saw this holiday was of 85 feeding in my favourite area for watching the species in the middle part of La Palma. The nesting season had started when I was there. In March 2017 I found a pair nesting in a site between Los Cancajos and Santa Cruz. They were there this time, too, and I saw a bird standing on the nest just before the end of my holiday.
The most unusual sightings of the holiday were out at sea. I saw kittiwakes on 5 days, mostly from the hotel. The first were 7 flying S on the 27th, followed by single birds on each of the next 4 days. The birds of La Palma are very much under-recorded (I am by far the main contributor for the island on eBird, for example), and the last time that a kittiwake was seen around La Palma was probably decades ago. They were my first kittiwakes in Spain. I also saw shearwaters of 3 species. Numbers of Cory's shearwaters weren't as consistently high as in the NE winds of March 2017, but I saw them every day this time in numbers ranging from 2 to 200+. I also saw 1 Barolo (little) and 7 Manx shearwaters.
The Cory's shearwaters were often associating with another of the highlights of the holiday, dolphins, which I saw on 12 days out of 14. I probably became known as 'dolphin man' by the end of the holiday, the number of people who I pointed them out to. One day I told the lass who was cleaning the room about the dolphins, speaking to her in Spanish, but she seemed to misunderstand a bit, saying "Tazacorte", a small port from which whale and dolphin watch trips go on the opposite side of the island. "¡No, aqui!" I said. The next morning the dolphins were just off the rocks behind the hotel. I returned to my room and met the cleaner in the corridor. She had seen the dolphins and was "enchanted", she told me.
As well as choughs and sea birds, La Palma has a few winter migrants and some endemic bird species. Most of the endemics also occur in some or all of the other Canary Islands, as well as Madeira in a few cases and the Azores (canary). Waders frequent a few wetland sites around the island, both coastal and inland. Probably the best is the area known as Las Martelas, an area of irrigation pools in the west of the island where Robert Burton and I saw an avocet last year, perhaps only the second record for the island.
There is an area of rock pools next to the airport, which is just south of Los Cancajos. When the weather was bad, the short bus ride there allowed me to have a change of scene without getting too wet. Waders there never exceeded about 10 in total, albeit of 4 or 5 species, including 1 or 2 grey plovers, always good to see. A common redshank which turned up part way through my holiday was more unusual for La Palma. I sometimes also saw waders from my balcony, namely 1 or 2 whimbrel, turnstone and common sandpiper.
At the southern tip of the island, on land added by the volcanic irruption of 1971, are salt pans, and they are also good for waders, although on my visit this time I only saw two, single turnstone and common sandpiper. However, when I got out of the bus a Eurasian spoonbill flew over, quite a rare species for La Palma. It appears not to have stayed, unless it doubled back to Las Martelas. The bus route to the salt pans passes Hotel Teneguía Princess, and when the bus turned in there on the way back there was a cattle egret standing on the roof of a car parked just up the road. Hotel guests were walking past all the time, and the cattle egret flew just across the narrow road and stood on a low wall, presumably to the surprise of the passers by.
I didn't do so well with all the endemic species this time. The rarest are two Canarian endemic pigeon species, both of which breed on La Palma. I saw more than ever of one of the species, called the laurel pigeon. This time, I even saw one from the bus heading up the north-eastern side towards the start of the walk to the rain forest at Los Tilos, which is what is often a hot walk of 4-5 km away up Barranco del Agua, which translates into English as 'gorge of the water'. It has the only HEP station in the Canaries. I went to Barranco del Agua about half way through my holiday but didn't get far, having good birding in the first km or so. I planned to go back again but didn't manage it because of the weather. Still, I saw another 9 laurel pigeons on that walk, as well as the only common chaffinch of the holiday. La Palma has a particularly distinctive subspecies of the chaffinch, although the bird which I saw, which was only about 100-200 metres from the main road, was a female. The best place to see the chaffinches is round a small restaurant in the depths of the forest at Los Tilos, and the area also has Bolle's pigeons (the other endemic pigeon species), African blue tits, (Tenerife) goldcrests and robins, none of which I saw or heard this holiday. I have put that down to advancing age stopping me walking as far!
On the last whole day on La Palma I caught the bus west to the area where I often go watching choughs. The island is split by a N-S ridge which doesn't dip below about 1400 metres in height. When I set off that morning it was sunny in the east, but when the bus emerged from the tunnel in the west the cloud was down and it was raining. I spent the next 45 minutes in the excellent visitor centre. It was still raining a bit when I set off walking, but the rain stopped after a while and the cloud rose a bit. The choughs were about, and I also saw 7 Berthelot's pipits, an endemic species for which this seems to be the best area on La Palma, as it is for the choughs.
I usually do a 'circular' walk when I am there, and when I was about halfway round this time I took a slight detour up a side road. While walked up there I noticed a kestrel flying low along the other side of the road. Kestrels on La Palma mostly eat lizards, which live in the walls made of chunks of volcanic rock. The kestrel checked the wall opposite without success, and went down in the shallow concrete drain, walking along all hunched. It seemed to find something to eat down there, lifting its head chewing at one stage. Then it hopped up onto the low wall and sat facing me. We sat like that for a few minutes. The kestrel didn´t seem to be bothered by me lifting my binoculars for a closer look, just staring at me with those big dark eyes rimmed with yellow. Sometimes it moved its head up and down as if checking that strange object opposite! A couple of walkers came down the road towards us, but they took a detour to avoid disturbing the bird. It was only when a car was driven up the road that the bird flew and the magic was lost.
Once the kestrel flew I checked the drain for food (kestrel food, that is!). All I found was a millipede, but I suppose that the kestrel had eaten whatever was edible before it had its rest on the wall.
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