We hired a car for three days with the intention of visiting some of the birding sites in the south of the island. We had planned on driving straight down to Cap de Ses Salines on the south coast of the island but we reckoned that\u00a0 we might as well take a second look at the other pools at Salobrar de Campos which was on our way anyway.\u00a0 When we had been here before with Cristina on our day of guided birding, we had parked up next to the hotel and taken “Eddie ‘s Track” down to the pools there. This time we went past the turning and drove down the road that leads to the salt works. We turned left at the salt world and drove along the road that runs along the edge of the Salinas.<\/p>\n
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We found\u00a0 a place to stop and immediately saw two Red Kites in the distance. On the pools we found large numbers of Dunlin and also many Ringed Plover. Scoping round a bit we went on to find a single Avocet and a single Greater Flamingo. There were quite a few Redshanks and a single Shelduck. The Avocet and Dunlin were holiday ticks.<\/p>\n
| Species<\/th>\n | Count<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common Shelduck<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Greater Flamingo<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Grey Heron<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Red Kite<\/td>\n | 2<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Pied Avocet<\/td>\n | 1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Common Ringed Plover<\/td>\n | 15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Common Redshank<\/td>\n | 30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dunlin<\/td>\n | 30<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n <\/p>\n We continued on to Cap de Ses Salines where we had great hopes of good sea watching and lots of birds in the garrigue. We would have been happier had we been entomologists,\u00a0 however, as most of the wildlife seemed to be biting insects.It is obviously one of the local attractions as there were lots of cars parked at the end of the road but the one thing that all those returning to their cars had in common was the they had been bitten to bits by blood-sucking critters.<\/p>\n We did manage to get distant views of (what we took to be Cory’s) Shearwaters and, in the bushes, Stonechat.\u00a0 It has to be said that it was a pretty gloomy day for the most part and very windy so a lot of birds preferred to stay hidden in their bushes scolding us as we walked past. Tired of being bitten we drove off to Portocolom\u00a0 hoping for fewer bites. Interestingly we came across three Carrion Crows in a field – every tick helps our holiday list.<\/p>\n Bird Sightings : Cap de Ses Salines<\/h4>\n
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