Son Real and the Depuradora de S’Illot
On the 15th we wanted to keep reasonably close to home so we visited a few sites not too far from Port de Pollenca. I wanted to take a look at Son Real again but along the coastal route that starts from the outskirts of Can Picafor. We found somewhere to park and then walked down to the beach. From there we had to cross the torente – fortunately it was dry and we could easily cross it – to get to the Son Bosc reserve. It was actually pretty busy and it was very warm so we decided that there wasn’t really any point in walking for miles along the busy beach. Instead we walked inland among the many goat paths between the short bushes. We occasionally flushed small birds but they flew off so fast and dove straight into another bush at the first opportunity to identification was near impossible.
After a while we gave up and returned to the torente. We tried another route back to the car and discovered that the torente, although dry at the sea, is quite wet a little further inland and a good sized reed bed was obviously harbouring lots of birds. Some of these were just House Sparrows (although we did get a single Spanish Sparrow) but there were probably other just too quick to identify. On the banks were two families of Egyptian Geese with their goslings. In the trees were Sardianian Warbler, Robin and even Stonechat. A couple of Little Grebe were diving out in the middle of the water.
We got so hot we had to find a bar to cool down; the facilities were welcome as well with the car being nearby. I wanted to visit the Depuradora de S’Illot so that is where we headed for next. It was too late in the year for Bee Eaters – they will all be in Africa by now – but from the platform we saw lots of Marsh Harriers and at least one Booted Eagle and a Kestrel. There ae lots of Cetti’s Warblers there and we got another Hoopoe and a single Cattle Egret. We also got a flock of Starling and odd single birds, Black-winged Stilt, Green Sandpiper, Swallow and Blackbird. One sighting that took us a while to work out because it was so distant was a small group of Grey Wagtails that landed in one of the fields, appearing from then disappearing into the furrows.
We drove back home with a quick stop at Can Curassa but apart from a single Common Sandpiper the most interesting sighting was of a Cormorant swimming – like a snake in the water – catching fish.