A few days ago, I enjoyed a great trip with Greg (Dalí) and Katherine from Australia. They have been living in Sidney all their life and when they retired from work, had decided to experience two years living in Spain. A part of visiting many cities and great places all over Spain, they are keen on discover all the birds life around Valencia where they are based.
They were particularly keen to see Great Bustard as they´d never seen them before. We also added Flamingoes to the list of target species as Katherine suggested.
After a comfortable drive from Valencia, we all agreed to have a coffee before we began our birding! We did so and then started by making a couple of stops to scan the vast fields. Our first stop gave good views of Crested Lark and the target of the day… Great Bustards, not far from a flock of Black-bellied Sandgrouse – another lifer for them!
We continued driving and we had to stop 3 times to enjoy more flocks of Great Bustards, as this was the key species of the day, I was hopeful of getting better views. Great Bustards tend to be very wary of humans, so I didn´t want to get any closer to them as that would have surely disturbed them. So, instead, we headed for the tracks that cross the high steppe.
Once we arrived to an old farm buildings we had fantastic views of Rock Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Corn Bunting, Spotless Starling and Iberian Grey Shrike.
We then stopped for a picnic lunch by a lagoon where we watched Shelduck, Shoveler, Red-crested Pochard and a few Lapwings. Sadly there were no Flamingoes but it wasn’t the end of the trip.
Our exploration of the high steppe didn´t reveal any more Great Bustards but we did get good views of 4 Little Owls.
Little Owl
Finally on the way back we found a big flock of Flamingoes in a small lagoon by a small village. It was funny to find only a few meters from there another flock of Great Bustards!! We had the two targets of the day side by side!!
Satisfied with our sightings, we headed back to Valencia. Greg and Katherine decided to book for the mountain trip in May once they will be back from visiting Galicia. It had been a pleasure to spend the day with them, and I look forward to taking them to the mountains soon.
The species of the day included…
Common Shelduck, Northern Shoveler, Mallard, Red-crested Pochard, Common Pochard, Red-legged Partridge, Greater Flamingo, Little Grebe, Feral Pigeon, Collared Dove, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Great Bustard, Water Rail, Common Moorhen, Eurasian Coot, Western Swamphen, Northern Lapwing, Yellow-legged Gull, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Western Marsh Harrier, Common Buzzard, Little Owl, Iberian Green Woodpecker, Common Kestrel, Iberian Grey Shrike, Common, Magpie, Carrion Crow, Calandra Lark, Crested Lark, Cetti’s Warbler, Black Redstart, European Stonechat, House Sparrow, Eurasian Tree Sparrow, Meadow Pipit, European Goldfinch, European Serin, Corn Bunting, Spotless Starling.