Bird Nerds: Return to La Janda

09 December 2010

Return to La Janda

As the weather had been pretty awful recently we decided to stay close to home and pay another visit to La Janda. We checked the forecast on the Internet and realised it'd be a good day to go so we set off.

Stonechat

We arrived on the scene at 7:30am and we instantly spotted Cranes flying overhead and feeding in the fields. There were also Cattle Egrets flying about in large numbers, off on their way to some feeding grounds, and we also managed to spot other bird species such as Finches, Siskins, Green Finches, Stonechats, Purple Gallinule, Serins, Chiffchaff and White Wagtails. Further down the track we stopped once again and saw great numbers of Lapwings feeding in the fields. We were searching in several locations for Blue Throats, as we hadn't seen them yet this year. Unfortunately, we were out of luck as we didn't even get a glimpse of one.

Lapwing in flight

Purple Gallinule

What we did get was a good soak, as it started pouring down with rain and we had to stay in the car for a bit! After 15 minutes the sun came out, the wind calmed down and our day brightened up quite a bit. We saw a Kestrel dive bombing at what looked like a much larger bird that was perched on top of a telephone post. We approached and discovered that it was actually a Juvenile Bonelli's Eagle!

Kestrel

We continued through the back section and we saw a flock of birds fly over us and settle in another field nearby. We got a bit closer to figure out what they were and realised they were about 400+ Golden Plovers. As we were checking out the Golden Plovers through the scope, we noticed several other birds that were larger. We used the scope and discovered that these larger birds were in fact Little Bustards. It was a great relief to see them, as they are quite difficult to locate. We took the opportunity to watch them from a distance until they decided to move on.