07 May : Fuente de Piedra

This morning, in view of the fact that the water levels at Fuente de Piedra were falling far too rapidly for the liking of myself and the waders, Federico and myself met there at 08.30, himself coming down from Córdoba, the early hour being with the faint hope of missing school parties. Plus we had hoped to contact with the remaining Spotted Redshank in breeding plumage that had been seen at the end of the last week, but t'was not to be.
In fact, it was virtually a waste of time from the wader point of view as the water on both sides of the road in and the walkway had dried up totally, a great shame as it is much used by waders on passage and it drying out so early means that those on late passage to the far north are deprived of a resting and, probably more importantly, a feeding area. It would certainly be extremely useful if some means could be found of keeping a few cms. of water in that area until at least the end of May and then reflooding from late July onwards as migrant waders would then benefit in both directions.
On the left side there 30 Ringed Plovers feeding on something - insects? -  and another seen later made the total 31 for the morning, plus a single Common Sandpiper which flushed off a patch of mud about the size of a pocket handkerchief. Going round to the mirador we saw a few more waders, apart from the omnipresent Avocets and Stilts, with a single Redshank and 4 Dunlin - big deal, especially if one counts the pair of Shelduck, the colony of Black-headed Gulls on one artificial island and the other full of Gull-bulled Terns. The lake is full of Greater Flamingos with a notable increase in occupation of the colony nuclei and we scannned and rescanned for any sign of the Lessers but without any joy . However, later in the morning I received a message from Mick Richardson who had been later than us and who did find a pair (thanks, Mick, lucky you).
An immature male Montagu's Harrier showed briefly as did a male Lesser Kestrel, it looks like colonisation of the tower in the field especially for them may bear fruit, if not this year, then in the near future.
A walk around to the laguna at the back gave a Great Reed Warbler (and I insist that they do NOT sing although I'm damned if I know what to call the noises that emanate) and a Melodious Warbler, plus a variety of ducks including 4 pairs of Red-crested Pochard seen and 3 adult Night Herons (I suppose that technically I should call them Black-crowned Night Herons but if you think that you've seen a Yellow-crowned it means you're hallucinating and have been on the happy baccy or worse).
End of visit and we got out just as three coachloads of obnoxious, uncontrolled and very noisy (and possibly noisesome) teenagers were disgorged from three coaches.
By now you will have gathered that I wasn't overly overjoyed with the morning and felt that I could have been doing something more useful - like machine-gunning the youths. Tomorrow morning, to the Guadalhorce. Will it be better, worse or a technical draw?