BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Paul Chapman" data-source="post: 3176856" data-attributes="member: 69491">At Tenerife North for the island hop to Fuerteventura so I'll update now.One of the definitions of madness is repeating activities expecting a different result. We returned to the Mirrador at Pico de Ingles. Visibility was as much as 150 yards at times, we were spoilt.I told one of my travelling companions who hadn't seen Thursday's Bolle's Pigeon that there was no point in him getting out of the car. He didn't. Inside 10 mins we had two close Bolle's Pigeons fly past through the low cloud - a nice but brief view of the upperside below us. He then got out of the car whilst I apologised. We had a total of 4 sightings of up to 6 birds in an hour and a half and finally all of the party had succeeded.The only other birds were the usual suspects calling away.We now had one priority being Plain Swift. Kind responses on the Information Wanted thread had mentioned Puerto de la Cruz. (It is a tricky species at this time of year.) A quick Internet search produced an Alan Miller 2004 report mentioning the Martianez area around San Felipe. We hatched a plan and an hour later had found an area to park and a bench by some football pitches near the seafront. At least 15 Plain Swift were seen in total looking inland over the town. The streets contained singing Canary and Canary Islands Chiffchaff as well as African Blue Tits feeding on the flowers, Spanish Sparrows and multitudes of Collared Doves refusing to sing the way I wanted!We had another five or so hours before we needed to head to the airport. We fancied a seawatch and set off for Punta del Hildago. Before we got out of Puerto de la Cruz, we dived into a Shell garage near the motorway junction to watch at least 4 Plain Swifts over the hill opposite. Whilst doing that some Barbary Patridges started a territorial scrap on the hillside just above a tennis court. All of our Tenerife targets had now been seen.Early afternoon a couple of hours seawatching from just north of Punta del Hildago produced 500+ Cory's Shearwater, 5+ Gannet, a Manx Shearwater and a Great Skua whilst Lesser Black-backed Gull was belatedly added to the trip list.The trip list stands at a mighty 39 but we have succeeded with our Tenerife targets and now head to Fuerteventura for the Bustard and the Chat.All the best</blockquote>

Verification