August 1, 2007
Birds moulting and hot weather make birdwatching harder!
Saw 56 Species in the Alcossebre area this month.
Tough going with most birds moulting their feathers and the hot weather making them keep to the shade.
Dispite that I did get some firsts for July, i.e. Little Grebe, Quail and Kingfisher.
Local passage and the first autumn birds kept up interest to.
Local breeding birds were showing off their young, and some species like the finches were joining up in flocks with other families.
A selected list of species seen follows:-
Little Grebe – the pair at the sewage pond have lost their nest/eggs for the second time.
The first time round it was the heavy April rain, this time is more of a
mystery, perhaps the local Moorhens?
Gannet & Shag – only single birds of each species were seen this month.
Grey Heron – flyovers of one to five birds through out the month, hard to separate local
Movements from autumn passage.
Purple Heron – two birds flying east on the 31st July, probably Ebro bound.
Shelduck – 8 birds flying east, were the first seen this year.
Cattle Egret – up to 26 birds seen this month.
Little Egret – one to three birds overflying this month.
Montagu´s Harrier – single adult male and female birds seen hunting over the fields,
Probably breeding birds from the nearby Prat of Cabanes reserve.
Quail – a calling bird on the 20th July didn´t stay around. It was my first July record here.
Black-winged Stilts – an excited family party of two adults and three juveniles took up
Residence at the local sewage pond from 17th to 25th July.
Curlew – two birds flying north on the 12th July, were the first of autumn.
Common Sandpiper – one to three birds passed through from the 21st July, the first of a
autumn.
Mediterranean Gull – two birds going east were the only ones seen this month.
Black-headed Gull – up to 17 birds were seen this month along the coast.
Audoiun´s and Yellow-legged Gulls – up to 60 of each were seen along the coast.
Sandwich and Common Terns – a mixed flock of each species were fishing on the 24th.
Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove and Turtle Dove – the maximum count for each of these
species was 6, 46 and 5 birds.
Great Spotted Cuckoo – juvenile´s were seen up to the 14th July.
Red-necked Nightjars – one or two local nesting birds calling through out the month.
Pallid and Common Swifts – the maximum numbers seen this month was on the 5th July
a mixed flock of 190 birds on a feeding movement.
Kingfisher – not only was a bird seen on the 14th my first July record here, but also the
the first seen this year.
Bee-eater – our two local pairs had two and three young respectively. So that proved that
a flock of 27 birds going east on the 29th July were not local, but migrants.
Hoopoe – the local population were looking a bit ragged with their moult, see photo.
Swallow – more and more local family parties were going up, maximum seen 109 birds.
House Martin – ironically were scarcer in the countryside with a maximum of 28 birds,
whilst in and around Alcossebre town there were hundreds!
White Wagtail – one or two juvenile birds turned up at the sewage pond from the 12th.
Nightingale – the last singing bird was heard on the 14th, harder to spot them now.
Fan-tailed Warbler – they had not stopped singing/calling, some on second broods.
A maximum of 15 birds counted.
Melodious Warbler – although they had stopped singing, several pairs wer still anxiety
calling to their young.
Sardinian Warbler – this species was still singing, up to 13 birds counted.
Spotted Flycatcher – another species anxiety calling, seems to be two local pairs.
Great Tit – were noisly flying around in family groups, some days you see them some
Days you don´t, as they wander around.
Golden Oriole – the three pairs and their young are good entertainment value just now,
as the adult males try to teach the juvenile males to sing!
Magpie – up to a maximum of 18 birds seen, some of the pairs glad no doubt to be rid of
their foster Great Spotted Cuckoos.
Woodchat Shrike – at least one of the two pairs breeding this year have been successful
as I saw one pair wth three juveniles on the 30th July.
Southern Great Grey Shrike – the first autumn bird was seen on the 29th July.
Cirl Bunting – unfortunately the one pair breeding lost their nest when the farmer
Grubbed out the orange grove where they nested, bad timing.
So a bad season for Buntings with no Corn Buntings breeding this year.
Alcossebre Weather for July, 2007.
July was a settled month for weather, with fine, sunny hot days being the norm. We had a wee bit of unsettled weather mid month, but it did bring us much welcome rain!
The average daytime temperature was 29C (84F) which was 3C lower than 2006. The hottest day was on the 23rd when it registered 37C (99F).
The average night temperature was 21c (71F) with the coolest nights on the 1st, 7th,8th and 12th July at 19c (67F).
Total rainfall for the month nearly all fell on the one day – the 22nd July, when we got 2.5 inches (64mm).
We had a trace of rain on the 21st and 29th July, not enough to register.
It was a cosistantly windy month, which helped keep things cooler.
Wind strengths were mainly light, gentle or moderate. We only had 2 days of strong winds - on the 9th and 10th of July.
Wind directions varied quite a bit, even from the morning to the afternoon.
Usually if the wind came from a northerly direction am it turned southerly pm. However, if it started off in the east or south it tended to stay in that direction all day.