On 23rd we mostly spent our day lying on the beach and having good family time. We visited Puerto del Rosario, which is the capital of Fuerteventura. Shopping mall and beach was nice and I had a small flock of Sandwich Terns flying around the beach. We collected some sea shells and Vilma made a little sand castle. Good times.
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| Geranium Bronze, Cacyreus Marshalli. |
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| Puerto Del Rosario was nice and worth to visit. |
At the evening we made small walk around the Castello de fuste beaches before dinner and I had more Common Sandpipers and Sandwich Terns near our hotel.
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| Distant Sandwich Terns at the shore. Sun was setting and light was disappearing fast when this photo was taken. |
On 24th I headed to my main target of this trip, the Dwarf Bittern place Barranco de Río Cabras. There was bad news about the Bittern and some twitchers spent lots of time with out any sign of the bird.
Still, I was there and I wanted to see the bird, so I arrived to the place at 10.30 am. When I parked my car I had distant Barbary Falcon and Juvenile Canary Island Egyptian Vulture, but because of the distance, there is no photos of those birds.
I walked to the place where was the biggest water area and there I had some Black-winged Stilts, Greenshank, Little Egrets and Ruddy Shelducks, but nothing really interesting yet. I walked a bit and a pair of Canary Island Chats started to move around me and they were showing nicely all the time after I found them. Chat was a lifer for me of course.
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| Male Canary Island Chat. |
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| Same bird, but closer. |
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| Female Canary Island Chat. |
I decided to walk a bit more and when I walked on the edge of the riverbed I some how flushed the Bittern and noticed it flying quite near me. I saw where it landed and during the walk closer I sent message to Eduardo Garcia Del Rey that bird is still in the area.
I was closer to the place where the bird landed and suddenly it flied again and this time I didn´t see where.
Thank god it was close and I managed to get some poor flight shots of it before it landed in vegetation near, but behind the bushes.
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| Record shots before the bird landed in vegetation. |
I went closer again and found it sitting on a branch behind some leafs and other vegetation. I managed to take some poor photos before it walked lower and disappeared.
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| This was all I got before the bird disappeared.. |
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| In this vegetation I last saw the bird before I left. |
Maybe needless to say that I was super happy that I relocated the bird. This was a real MEGA from the Western Palearctic. Fifth for Spain and 7th for Western Palearctic. After this bird there has been one juvenile bird in Fuerteventura and one first winter bird taken care in Gran Canaria.
Other birds in the area were a small flock of Trumpeter Finches, two Great Grey Shrikes and few Berthelot´s Pipits.
I also checked the Lesser Scaup place after I arrived back to Castello Caleta De Fuste and this time there was Tundra Bean Goose which is first for Canary Islands and found last November. Shame that it was flushed by some golfers and golf cart before any photos... Lesser Scaup was nicely there and Eurasian Spoonbill was flying over the Golf course.
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| Lesser Scaup. |
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| Distant Eurasian Spoonbill. |
After I drove back to our hotel we went to some local steak house and I had 38oz t-bone steak, which is 1077g and it was big! It took me about 25 minutes to eat it and it was worth every penny!
At the evening we had nice walk and good food in our hotel restaurant. What a awesome day with rare birds and good food with my family!
-Tom
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