Fuente de Piedra

After a week of fairly rough weather with some rain, grey skies and wind in vast quantities, the metcast yesterday promised a reduction in wind strength and, dare I even think it, blue skies and sunshine! So, with that in mind, Bob Hibbett and I set forth for a short visit of less than 3 hours to Fuente de Piedra lake and surrounds this morning.
Mind you, we had doubts as when we left the skies were grey and lowering and there was a wind that could hardly be described as a zephyr. And by the time we were nearing the top of Las Pedrizas, the big road that goes up and up out of Málaga, we were in the clouds with foglights on and the wind buffeting the car, and thus it continued until we started on th downhill run at El Romeral which leads to Antequera and billiard table flat plain when the first faint rays of a reluctant sun illuminated the landscape.
There was nothing at the Laguna Dulce, Campillos, and that in spite of the first standing water that I have seen there in several years, testimony to the rains of this last month. So, from there on to Fuente de Piedra, first stopping at the west end to look down over the lake and with the very pleasant surpriseof a few little heads peering over a rise on the far side of the road- 6 Cranes which soon showed as being an awful lot more, around 60 or so to which can be added another 29 at Cantarranas, sum 89 plus birds which should be rather more north by now. As the birds that winter in the are are usually on their way north by the end of the third week in February, I suspect that these were from further south still, probably Morocco.
There were plenty of flamingos, little, distant, pink spots, in the lake but that didn't deter us scanning hopefully for signs of the Lesser Flamingos which have been reported and it didn't take long to locate two amongst the mass of widely spread Flamingos, of which there were some small flocks in full display with heads and necks extended and wing-flashing at each other. We found another two later on from the information centre mirador. Finding and identifying them isn't too difficult, the colouration is much richer, almost an orange-pink in sunlight, and they are much smaller than their larger relatives. There is an ongoing discussion as to the origin of these and some are certainly escaped birds, indeed we caught one during the 1998 (I think) ringing of the chicks which bore a collection ring - a stunning bird in the hand with its ruby-red eye. But, there are so many records that I, and many others, believe that some probably make their way up with our flamings which venture down as far as the Banc d'Arguin, Mauretania, where there is a colony of Lessers.
As to the other species, a small selection of waders including a couple of Green Sandpipers and 3-4 Redshanks, a few each of Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers, a single Ruff, a considerable number of Golden Plovers, 80-100 at a guesstimate, and about half that number of Lapwings. There was a flock of Little Stints, possibly as many as 50 but many were distant dots, amongst which 8 Dunlins mixed and 3 Black-tailed Godwits rounded off the waders of the morning.

The Yellow Wagtails are coming through now, and while last weekend I had a male Ashy-headed cinereocapilla, today we had the pleasure of a superbly coloured male of the iberiae race -the Spanish Wagtail - and another which was of the Scandinavian thunbergi race, also known as the Grey-headed Wagtail while I had a brief view of what I believe was a British Yellow Wagtail, the flavissima. Other passerines of interest included 2-3 late Song Thrushes and, I am almost certain, a single Redwing. There were plenty of hirundines in evidence and passage is now in full flow, especially as the sun emerged and the temperature jumped 10º - lovely to be in shirt sleeves this afternoon!

And as a PS, this week there have been several reports of Pallid Swifts in the Málaga area Indeed, on Wednesday I saw 4 near my home and on Thursday around 20 birds in the same area, one of which was prospecting a site where I know that several pairs breed.