April 2015 archive

Apr 30 2015

Summary : April 2015

Summary : April 2015

New Species added to 2015 Year List in April = 11

Running Total for the 2015 UK So Far = 112

New UK Life List Birds In March = 0

Our Garden

Lots of activity now with Tits gadding around, a Dunnock furtling, a Robin putting in an appearance. the two Mistle Thrushes continue their daily visits. The inevitable Woodpigeon has been joined by a Stock Dove. A Sparrowhawk was spotted briefly. There are also a few Goldfinch and a Wren. Mixed weather at the beginning of the month but some sunnier weather towards the last week of the month.
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Apr 30 2015

Mallorca Holiday 30th April 2015 : S’Albefura

Mallorca Holiday 30th April 2015 : S’Albefura

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Apr 29 2015

Mallorca Holiday 29th April 2015 : La Gola and Boquer Valley

Mallorca Holiday 29th April 2015 : La Gola and Boquer Valley

I was supposed to have a quiet day reading and doing a bit of shopping for the necessaries while Anne took the bus to Pollenca Town so I thought I would walk into town via the La Gola mini reserve. There had been a bit of overnight rain a couple of nights ago so this might explain why the normal Greenshank and Sandpiper weren’t there as the water levels were a bit high. I spent quite some time looking for a Serin,  eventually getting two.

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Apr 28 2015

Mallorca Holiday 28th April 2015 : S’ Albufera,Son Bosc and Depuradora de S’Illot

Mallorca Holiday 28th April 2015 : Son Bosc, Depuradora de S’Illot and S’ Albufera

Our destination this day was to the S’ Albufera nature reserve near C’an Picafort, a huge reserve that always impresses with its huge range of habitats and species. We also had another target, though, and that was to try to see Bee Eaters. A couple we had met at the Casa Boquer had shown us pictures of Bee Eaters on the power lines at the Son Bosc site just outside the edge of the S’Albufera reserve. They told us that if we couldn’t see them there the we wouldn’t see them anywhere!  Gosney also says that this is the best site for this species so heartened by this we set out with the idea that we would get there by walking through the S’Albefura reserve.

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Apr 27 2015

Mallorca Holiday 27th April 2015 : La Gola, Boquer Valley and Pollenca Environs

Mallorca Holiday 27th April 2015 : La Gola, Boquer Valley and Pollenca Environs

We woke up to find that it had been raining in the night and that there was a 25% chance of rain during the day. This meant that a possible plan to go to S’ Albufera was put on hold in favour of doing a couple of smaller things within easy reach of cover if it rained. As it happened it didn’t rain at all but we have plenty of time and plenty of options so it didn’t really matter which itinerary we followed on any given day. So we thought we would do our usual walk through the La GOla reserve, on to the by-pass and then up to Casa Boquer and through the valley to the other side.

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Apr 26 2015

Mallorca Holiday 26th April 2015 : Port de Pollenca and La Gola

Mallorca Holiday 26th April 2015 : Port de Pollenca and La Gola.

With friends from Palma visiting us at noon we had just enough time for a spin around La Gola before they arrived. The general area held the usual Greenshank and Common Sandpiper and a Yellow-legged Gull. There were numerous Mallard chicks and one creche held around 20 of them. In the shrubbery there were several Stonechats and we heard a Sardinian Warbler. The Greenfinch was again the dominant bird numerically. We decided to take a bit of a diversion through the woods. It was one of the best decisions we could have made and gave us the “tick of the fortnight” and although not a “life tick” it was a most splendid sighting.
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Apr 25 2015

Mallorca Holiday 25th April 2015 : Port de Pollenca, La Gola and the Boquer Valley

Mallorca Holiday 25th April 2015 : Port de Pollenca, La Gola and the Boquer Valley

After yesterday’s exertions we decided to have a quieter day today taking in some of the sites close to our hotel. Yesterday had been scorching hot so we wanted to be nearer to some refreshments if needed. We took in the La Gola mini-reserve, the fields next to the Port de Pollenca by-pass, the approach to the Boquer Valley and the “pine tree avenue” mentioned by Gosney. We had a bit of a late lunch and returned along the sea front to our hotel. In the process we managed to get another “life tick”, though.

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Apr 24 2015

Mallorca Holiday 24th April 2015 : “Pollenca Back Lanes”

Mallorca Holiday 24th April 2015 : “Pollenca Back Lanes”

We decided to do a bit of local birding as a warm up for the more distant sites that we meant to do later in our holiday. We plumped for the “Pollenca Back Lanes” tour mentioned in Dave Gosney’s book ““Finding Birds in Mallorca”. The walk didn’t let us down and we got a good list of species during the day including three “life ticks”
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Apr 23 2015

Mallorca Holiday 23rd April 2015 : La Gola and Port de Pollenca

Mallorca Holiday 23rd April 2015 : La Gola and Port de Pollenca

We had visited Mallorca in October of 2014 (see here for summary of that trip) and were so impressed with the birding that we decided we just had to return for the spring migration when it is supposed to be inundated with birds. I have to say that this spring was somewhat different, which was confirmed by many birders we spoke to who had been to Mallorca in the spring before, and the huge masses of birds on migration were not to be seen. This didn’t mean that we didn’t see any birds, though, because we saw many fantastic birds and visited many wonderful natural locations in and around Port de Pollenca racking up a good number of species and some great “life ticks” while we were there.

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Apr 21 2015

Burton Mere Wetlands and Parkgate : 21 April 2015

Burton Mere Wetlands and Parkgate : 21 April 2015

We missed the first birding group outing of this term as a result of heavy colds and building work on the house so we were particularly pleased to eventually get out of the house and into the country. We had missed the birding group visit to Moore the previous week but here we had a gloriously sunny day in which to catch up on all those spring migrants we had not been able to catch up with until now. We could not have picked a better day to catch up on these birds because the warmth and sun seemed to have brought them all out singing and displaying.

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