Bolonia & La Janda (Cádiz) today

In a moment of uninspired madness, I was up very early and bundled the dog in the car, much to her disgust as she expects to be sound asleep at 6 in the morning (see photo of hyper-active spaniel on the left) and if awoken early has an attitude problem, and off for what I hoped would be a fair day's birding in Bolonia-La Janda area.
Bolonia was the target for both Little and White-rumped Swifts at the usual spot, but nothing there to enjoy except a rather nice male Blue Rock Thrush and the usual Griffon Vulture and off-spring on the nest. It was here that the first really good bird of the day turned up, a dark morph Eleonora's Falcon sitting on an electricity pylon near the Roman ruins. The Eleonora's are quite frequent in the Strait area during both migrations.
The main target was La Janda was to see if any Red-footed Falcons were hanging around but there was no joy in that respect, but there was a nice little trickle of raptors, 9 spp. seen which is not too bad considering that it is getting on a bit in the migration season and the wind was westerly, which is far from ideal. Black Kites were still quite numerous but the rest was in penny numbers. The best, and a toss-up with the Eleonora's for being bird of the day, was a 2cy Imperial Eagle which showed quite well for a couple of minutes at the north end of La Janda.

NOTE ON TRACKS: Earlier on this month, I reported that the tracks on La Janda were being repaired and pointed out that it was well gone time that they were. It is true, repairs are taking place and the track beside the canal is a motorway compared with what it was, the track across from the N-340 to the north end and the bridge across the canal is also graded, as is the long stretch from the bridge to the sluice gates, after which all goes pear-shaped. The road is being ripped up further on and nothing has been done on the central track, which remains diabolical and suitable only for 4x4s and lightly loaded cars with a good ground clearance (eg.Ford Fusion with me and spaniel).