February 2015 archive

Feb 11 2015

Lanzarote : 11th February 2015

Lanzarote : 11th February 2015

On the 11th of February we decided to retrace our steps at El Jable to see if we could find any of the desert birds we had seen a couple of days previously with our guide Carmen. I had made a GPS track of our day out and this enabled me to find the track off the main road just between Munique and Soo on the LZ-401. Dave Gosney’s book, “Finding Birds in the Canaries” actually marks the very same path into the desert (pages 36–37) but I forgot to look at this first. So, the question was would we find these birds on our own ? The answer was a resounding “yes”

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Feb 10 2015

Lanzarote : 10th February 2015

Lanzarote : 10th February 2015
On the 10th February we spent the morning doing the Timanfaya tour which was as amazing as ever. Apart from a few Berthelot’s Pipits there wasn’t much bird action. We left there for a camel ride on the slopes of the volcano nearby but again only the roost of Rock Doves by the camel station gave us another tick, even if rather mundane. From here we went to El Golfo for a spot of lunch (Yellow-legged Gulls mainly) and the on to the Salinas de Janubio where we had gone with Carmen, our birding guide, a couple of days previously. This time we were on our own but had just as much success and in some respects we had more remarkable views than previously.

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Feb 09 2015

Lanzarote : 9th February 2015

On our second day on Lanzarote we chilled out a bit and took advantage of the improved weather, even getting a bit of balcony sunbathing in. We did just squeeze in a walk down the promenade which gave us a view of four or five Turnstone on the rocks and a pair of diving Sandwich Terns. There were, of course, the ubiquitous Yellow legged Gulls
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Feb 08 2015

Lanzarote : 8th February 2015

We arrived on Lanzarote late afternoon of the 7th February and by the time we got to our hotel and settled in there was just time to find a restaurant, eat and get a fairly early night before our planned day of birding with Carmen from LanzaroteActiveClubs. The plan was to drive up to the El Jable desert near Soo looking for desert birds and then drive back down south to the Salinas de Janubio for a chance of interesting waders.
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Feb 03 2015

RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands : 3rd February 2015

RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands : 3rd February 2015

The first birding group outing of February was to RSPB Burton Mere Wetlands and like our last visit to this site 20th December 2014 there was a lot of frozen water on the site. The main pool in front of the Reception Hide was not as totally frozen as before so there were some Mallards, Wigeon and Teal looking very cold on the water/ice and also a couple of Black-tailed Godwit adding a little interest. Broadly speaking, however, it wasn’t heaving with birds. Our main aim this visit was, however, to go to the newly opened at Burton Point and this was very interesting indeed.

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