The Birdman of Alcossebre (Spain)

Less Migrants more Breeding Birds

Weather : The first 17 days of May were warm but unsettled with an average daytime temperature of 23C (75F).
The rest of May was much more settled with 10 days in excess of 26C (80F).
We had 9 days with rain, usually light showers, but some were accompanied by Thunderstorms and heavy rain.
Winds throughout the month were generally light to gentle, with the East to South East the predominant direction.

Farming Scene: Most of the farming effort was in the Tomato fields with the support canes being put in place and tied together.
See photo.
More fields were ploughed up and left to fallow.
The Artichokes were nearly finished and beginning to produce the blue thistle like head.
Almond Trees were contining to produce ripening Almonds.
Orange and Olive Trees were finished flowering and starting to produce their fruit.
The few Wheat fields were almost ready to cut.

Birds : 65 species were seen during April.
May saw the last of the Spring passage of birds.
Highlights this month were first records here of Avocet, Roller and Great Reed Warbler.
The main interest this month was in the number of breeding birds.

Seawatching/Seabirds : Usually one of the quietest months for sea birds here, with most species on their breeding grounds.
So only 2 species seen this month. Cormorants were seen only twice – 2 groups of 2 and 6 birds flying east mid month.
Gannets were not seen until the last 3 days of the month when 2 groups of 4 birds were seen. 2 adults and 2 Juveniles in one group and 4 juveniles in another.Which begs the question – are they now breeding in the Mediterranean?
Herons and Egrets : Squacco Heron – 4 birds seen. 2 birds flying East and 2 birds at the Sewage Pond. Grey Heron – A total of 14 birds passed through this month. Purple Heron – 2 single birds seen. One flying West and one at the Sewage Pond.
Cattle Egret – Up to 14 birds seen, but none after the 20th May.
Little Egret – one to two birds seen up to mid month, then with more people along the coast they had few places to feed.

Birds of Prey : Only three species seen this month.
Black Kite – Single birds flew East on the 5th and 8th May.
Common Kestrel – Single resident birds seen throughout,
Hobby – the only bird this Spring passed through on the 14th.

Pheasant –the male that first appeared in the area in January has been calling throughout the month. Whether he finds a mate remains to be seen!
Moorhen – up to 4 pairs were busy nesting at the only two places with ponds in the area.

Wading Birds : Black Winged Stilts – 7 birds seen on one of the beaches on the 27th May were a late surprise.
Avocet – 2 birds flying East along the coast on the 26th May were my first record here.
The first Kentish Plover and Ringed Plover were seen on the 12th and 16th May.
Common Sandpiper –single birds were seen passing through until 16th May.

Gulls and Terns : One of the quietest months for this group, most of the birds seen are non breeding birds.
Black Headed Gull – 21 birds flew West on the 4th May.
Audouin’s Gull – a maximum of 70 birds seen this month.
Yellow Legged Gull – a maximum of 180 birds seen this month.
This species of gull breeds inland and comes and feeds at the coast daily.
Sandwich Tern – only a maximum of 6 birds seen this month.

Pigeons and Doves : Wood Pigeon – There apears to be 3 pairs breeding in the area this year.
Collared Dove –Much more numerous in numbers and harder to say how many pairs breeding – possibly up to 15 pairs.
Turtle Dove – up to 4 birds were still passing through until the 16th May. One pair remained to breed.

Cuckoos : Great Spotted Cuckoo – the last of the adult birds were seen up to the 13th May. The first young birds were seen on the 27th May when up to 3 birds were seen begging for food of the local Magpie parents.

Little Owl – now seems to be at least 5 pairs in the local area.

Red Necked Nightjar – at least two males calling locally.

Swifts, Swallows and Martins : Common and Pallid Swifts – there were still hundreds of each species passing through until the 14th May. There after local breeding birds of both species were seen daily.
Sand Martin – 3 birds on the 18th May were the last of the Spring .
Swallow – The last of the north bound migrants came through on the 6th May. There after the 20 to 25 local pairs were all feeding young at their nests.
Red Rumped Swallow – 3 birds seen flying East on the 6th May.
House Martin – the local population of about 8 pairs were feeding young at their nests.

Hoopoe – still 7 or 8 pairs feeding young.
Roller – what a bird to start off May with,my first record of a Roller here flying along the coast on 1st May!
Bee eater –only 3 separate pairs breeding this year.

Larks, Pipits and Wagtails :Crested Lark –our only breeding lark were doing well with 10 to 15 pairs holding territory.
The only Blue Headed Wagtails of the Spring were seen on the 11th May – 3 birds. A big decrease on last years passage numbers.

Wheatears and Chats :
Whinchat – the last of the Spring birds were seen on 16th May.
Northern Wheatear – one to eight birds were passing through up to the 18th May.

Thrushes : Only one species of this group seen this month.
3 pairs of Blackbird were nesting locally.

Warblers :8 species of warbler were seen this month.
Nightingale – 3 pairs holding territory this year.
Fan Tailed Warbler – 6 pairs holding territory now after last months concern about them.
Reed Warbler – a pair arrived on the 3rd May to take up territory at the local Sewage Pond.
More surprizing was a Great Reed Warbler singing from some Giant Reed in the dry river bed, Rio San Miquel,27th May. This was my first record here.
Melodious Warbler – the first birds arrived on 1st May. Now 5 or 6 pairs are holding territory.
Dartford Warbler – one wintering bird held on to the 2nd May.
Subalpine Warbler – the last Spring passage bird was seen on the 2nd May.
Sardinian Warbler – in contrast, there were up to 10 pairs of this species holding territory.
Willow Warbler - one to five birds were seen up to the 16th May.

Pied Flycatcher – the last of the Spring birds was a single on 2nd May.
Spotted Flycatchers – appeared a day later.One pair are breeding locally.

Up to 6 pairs of Great Tits were nesting locally the only member of this group we have.

Woodchat Shrikes – the last Spring migrants (up to 4 birds) passed through by 16th May, leaving one pair to breed locally.

Golden Oriole – the first arrived back on the 3rd May. There after up to 4 pairs held territory locally.

Magpie – up to 10 pairs were holding territory, and only an unlucky few were bringing up Great Spotted Cuckoos!

Spotless Starling – noisy family parties were about everywhere it seemed.

Both House and Tree Sparrows were nesting in good numbers.

Finches and Buntings :
Greenfinch – about 7 to 9 pairs holding territory.
Goldfinch – up to 24 pairs holding territory, with the first family parties seen from the 26th May.
Serin – up to 16 pairs holding territory, with the first family parties seen from the 30th May.
Cirl Buntings – one or two pairs holding territory.
Corn Buntings – up to 6 pairs holding territory.

Finally as a tailpiece, one of the common Butterflies in the garden during May.

A good month for Herons and passage birds

Weather :
The first half of April was unsettled, most days were cloudy with sunny spells. Which meant the average daytime temperature struggled to reach 20C (68F), whereas from the 18th onwards the average daytime temperature was 24C (75f). With some fine sunny weather and excellent visibility.
There were only four days with rain, no days having torrential rain.
Winds for the most part were light to gentle, mainly East or South-easterly. Although we had two spells of strong North/North westerly winds, from the 9th to the 12th and the 15th to the 17th.
We only had one thunderstorm on the 15th.

Farming Scene:
Most of the farming effort this month was in preparing the fields for Tomato planting. That meant after last months ploughing and tilling the fields were levelled and laid out with black plastic pipes to provide the drip irrigation needed.
Then it was a case of planting the tomato plants by hand by the use of dibbers and as much help as possible – see photo.
Orange trees were being pruned to allow as much light into the centre of the plants as possible.
Olive and Almond groves were being ploughed regularly to keep down the weeds.
Artichokes were still being picked by the hundreds.

Birds : 83 species were seen during April.
The Spring passage of birds continued unabated with most of them still a week to a fortnight later than normal.
Although there were some exceptions e.g. Red-necked Nightjar.

Seawatching/Seabirds : A surprisingly quiet month for seabirds.
Only a maximum of 4 Mediterranean Shearwaters and 2 Gannets seen.
Cormorants returned to much more normal numbers of 1 to 2 birds with 17 flying past on the 17th.
The 24th produced 2 Arctic Skuas and 2 Mediterranean Gulls flying West, the only record of the month.
All the Greater Flamingos were seen flying past over the sea heading East – 52 birds on 14th; 22 birds on 22nd and 1 bird on 26th.

Herons and Egrets : It was a good month for both the numbers and variety of Herons passing through.
1 to 5 Night Herons were seen throughout the month.
2 single Squacco Herons passed through.
A total of 37 Grey Herons flew past during the month.
A total of 10 Purple Herons were seen, mainly passing through, but one obliged by landing on a farmers wall – see photos.
Cattle Egrets peaked at 21 birds and 1 to 3 Little Egrets were seen.

Birds of Prey : A good variety were seen this month.
1 to 5 Black Kites passed through.
One Montagu’s Harrier was seen on 23rd.
1 to 3 Sparrowhawks passed through.
One Osprey spent the early morning fishing in the local Lagoon on the 12th.
1 to 2 Common Kestrels were seen throughout.
A single Merlin passed through on the 15th.

2 Red-legged Partridge a single Pheasant and up to 12 Moorhens were seen this month.

Wading Birds : Although there were not big numbers seen there was a good variety of this group of birds seen.
1 to 2 Black-winged Stilts were seen from the 6th.
2 Lapwings were seen on the 19th.
Single Whimbrels seen throughout.
One Curlew on the 24th.
Single Redshank and Greenshank seen throughout.
One Wood Sandpiper seen on the 17th.
1 to 3 Common Sandpipers seen from the 14th.

Gulls and Terns : A quiet month for this group.
The 2 Mediterranean Gulls mentioned earlier being the highlight.
Black-headed Gulls passed through in flocks up to 114 birds.
Audouin’s Gulls were the commonest gull peaking at 159 birds.
Yellow-legged Gulls were nesting inland so there numbers were well down at the coast – maximum 15 birds.
Lesser Black-back Gulls had all moved on by the 20th April. Max.17 birds.
The only tern seen were Sandwich Terns with a maximum of 32 birds seen.

Pigeons and Doves : While Wood Pigeons (4 birds max.) and Collared Doves (17 birds max.) were nesting. Turtle Doves were passing through from the 17th April in flocks of up to 17 birds.

Cuckoos : A single Common Cuckoo was heard and seen on the 21st April and up to 3 pairs of Great Spotted Cuckoos were still harassing the local Magpies.

Up to 3 Little Owls could be heard calling at one time in the early morning and evening. One even sounded like one of our cats!

The first Red-necked Nightjar of the year flew over our garden at dusk on the 24th April.

Swifts, Swallows and Martins : The first Pallid Swifts arrived on the 3rd April, and there were several days when hundreds of these and Common Swifts passed through. E.G. on the 19th April I counted 270 Pallid/Common Swifts passing per hour and that continued most of the day.
1 to 6 Alpine Swifts passed through from the 3rd April.
A maximum of 8 Sand Martins and 26 House Martins were seen throughout the month.
While the local Swallows were nesting there were still migrant Swallows passing through at a rate of 105 birds per hour – 5th April.
2 Red-rumped Swallows passed through on 6th April.

While the local Hoopoes were nesting – max. of 7 pairs – migrant Bee-eaters were passing through from the 15th April, in flocks of up to 17 birds.

Larks, Pipits and Wagtails : A poor month for this group. Normally in April there are small flocks of Blue-headed Wagtails passing through, but none this year.
Crested Larks were nesting with a maximum of 12 birds seen.
1 to 3 Meadow Pipits were seen up to the 13th April.
Unlike last year no Tree Pipits were seen.
Only one White Wagtail was noted on the 19th.

Wheatears and Chats :
Single Common Redstarts were seen from the 7th April.
1 to 2 Whinchats were seen from the 8th April.
Northern Wheatears passed throughout the month – max. 9 birds.
1 to 2 Black-eared Wheatears were seen from the 7th April.

Thrushes : Only one species of this group seen this month.
3 pairs of Blackbird were nesting locally.

Warblers : A good month for warblers passing through.
Single male Dartford Warblers were still in scrubby areas and may nest.
Single Subalpine Warblers seen from the7th April.
Up to 12 Sardinian Warblers nesting locally.
In sharp contrast, Fan-tailed Warblers were well down in numbers, only 1 to 2 birds seen, giving cause for concern.
Considering 6 to 7 pairs were normal in 2003/2004.
One Lesser Whitethroat was seen on the 21st April.
Up to 5 Blackcaps were seen up to the 23rd April.
One Wood Warbler was seen on the 21st April.
One Chiffchaff was seen on the 8th April.
Willow Warblers were seen throughout – max. 7 birds.
Up to 3 Nightingales were seen and heard, from the 12th April.

1 to 2 Pied Flycatchers were seen from the 14th April.
Spotted Flycatchers were still to appear.

Up to 6 pairs of Great Tits were nesting locally the only member of this group we have.

Up to 9 Woodchat Shrikes were seen throughout, including 6 together in one small patch of scrubland.

A maximum of 18 Magpies were seen, while the much rarer Carrion Crow was seen on the 8th April. 2 birds the first this year!

While the local Spotless Starlings were nesting everywhere the Common Starlings had disappeared by the 19th April.

Both House and Tree Sparrows were nesting in good numbers.

Finches and Buntings :
All members of this group were now nesting.
Maximum numbers seen were Greenfinch – 16 birds; Goldfinch – 34 birds; Serin – 22 birds; Cirl Buntings – 2 pairs and Corn Buntings were still seen in good numbers up to the 14th April – 44 birds. Thereafter 3 pairs were the normal.