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Canary Islands (1 Viewer)

dorsetwurzel

New member
Hi Guys,
I am looking at going to the Canaries sometime between October and Feb for aout a week. Can anyone recomend which island is best for birds/wildife?

I am not into touristy areas or beaches (I hate them in fact!) and the more I can get away from people the better.

I also like to stay away from the coast as its generally cheaper in small simple self catering places. I will be hiring a car as generally to get to the best places public transport is no good.

I am completly open on ideas. Any advice will be much apprecieated.
Tim
 
Hi Tim

Have a look in Opus here, which should give you some ideas

Hope this helps

D
 
I've done a lot of birding in the Canaries over the years but it depends on where you plan to go. Unlike you, most of my birding has been more in the tourist areas because I have to combine it with family holidays.

But having said that, apart from in the more frantic resorts of Tenerife and Gran Canaria, I haven't had to wander far to find decent birds.

The most productive island I've found to be Feurteventura (where Canary Islands Chat actually came onto our patio furniture searching for food), followed closely behind by Lanzarote, where, in 2005, I found Cream Coloured Courser, Houbara Bustard and Egyptian Vulture within a mile of the centre of Paya Blanca.

The ferry crossing between Tenerife and Gomera is excellent for seabirds and Cory's Shearwaters are abundant.
 
It depends what you want to see, I've been birding on the eastern 3 islands (Lanzarote, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria). Lanzarote and Fuerteventura share many similarities in being mostly desert, birds found on both include houbara, courser, trumpeter finch, southern grey shrike, hoopoe, lesser short-toed lark, spectacled and sardinian warblers, spanish sparrow and the ubiquitous berthelot's pipit. Fuerteventura also has black-bellied sandgrouse, the chat and more egyptian vultures than Lanzarote, Lanzarote on the other hand was good for cattle egrets. Neither island has any of the pigeons, nor blue chaffinch, though there is a perhaps feral population of canary on Lanzarote. Gran Canaria was quite birdless, lacking most of the desert species such as houbara and courser, but it did produce canary, turtle doves, plenty of plain swifts, hoopoes and canary islands chiffchaff. There is an outside chance of blue chaffinch, but they are very rare and the pigeons are extinct. For the chaffinch, it needs to be Tenerife.

Hope this helps.
 
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