02 May: Fuente de Piedra

This will be a short blog about the trip to Fuente de Piedra yesterday, 02 May, in company of Chris Feare on a brief visit between his home in the UK and before going back to the Seychelles to contunue his 40 year research programme on the Sooty Terns there. With us was Federico Valles and we had a rewarding morning, even though there were not the numbers of birds present that I was fortunate enough to see exactly a week before.
Whilst we had coffee, Chris also gave some information on saving the Seychelles Magpie-Robin (Shama de Seychelles), of which the population was down to only 12 individuals but a removal programme of the introduced mynahs took their population down to zero, the population is now in the 300 range with no signs of endogamia.
As you may have noticed, there is also a slight addition to this blog in that following a suggestion from Federico, and knowing that some of the readers are Spanish, from now on I shall now insert the names in Spanish using a different colour. Thus, House Sparrow will have added behind it (gorrión común) in the colour shown here. If you are a Spanish reader of the blog, I would be grateful to hear if you like the idea or not.
There were much fewer waders and even though I did not do much accurate counting, largely because of talking a lot!, the approximate/guesstimated numbers are given after each species and for some there is not even that. Neither are there any photos as the only ones taken were of a disappearing Glossy Ibis (morito) which we later saw feeding and revealed itself to be a 1st summer bird as there was very little gloss! This was bird of the day for Chris and a new species as he has always managed to miss them previously! The other photo was of the rear end of a water vole (not rat as some name them, largely started by the naming of Ratty in 'Wind in the Willows').
In fact, we saw only 10 species of waders, including the omnipresent Avocets (avoceta) and Black-winged Stilts (cigüeñuela). There were some 30 Ringed Plovers (Chorlitejo grandes), many which will undoubtedly finish their journey inside the Arctic Circle, as will some of the 10+ Little Stints (correlimos menudo) which were in gorgeous breeding plumage, Dunlin (correlimos común) and Curlew Sandpipers (correlimos zarapitin). After starting off seeing one handsome Wood Sandpiper (andarríos bastardo), life was suddenly enlivened by the arrival of a flock of 9, all in breeding plumage and there were a few Common Sandpipers (andarríos chico) teetering around. There were still 5+ Redshanks (archibebe común) and a few Little Ringed Plovers (chorlitejo chico). From the board walk we also saw a single Squacco Heron (garcilla cangrerjera) and also, apart from enjoying conversation with two Swedish birders, some raptors.
There were at least 4 Kestrels (cernicalos), we think Lessers (primillas) but shadow was deep and they were rather distant. More interestingly, a first very distant flock of ca.10 big raptors over the distant Sierra de Yeguas (the one with the windmills) was, with the exception of one slightly smaller bird which we did not manage to identify satisfactorily, composed of Honey Buzzards (abejero europeo) and we were to see more birds moving along there for a total of 41+ of this species.  Rather nearer were the two Black Kites (milano negro) which swung across more or less in front of the information centre, offeruing excellent views.
Out on the rapidly drying up lake there are still an awful lot of Greater Flamingos (flamenco rosa) and we located two Lessers (flamenco enano).  Theare, in fact, 3 pairs of Lesser Flamingos in the colony, plus another two which were probably the ones which we saw. A slow but upward growth line! There was also a pair of Shelduck (tarro blanco).
So to the end of the morning with the noise of a Great Reed Warbler (carricero tordal) still ringing inside the brain, its so-called song tempered by the rather sweeter song of a Nightingale (ruiseñor común) and the continual movement of Gull-billed Terns (pagaza piconegra) it was time to be off.