New Years Day birding trip

Jackie and I decided to forgo the invites to New Years eve parties and get up early to start our bird list for 2012. The weather forecast was good and I started of to our local patch (with our dog Skye) in La Drova to begin the list for the day. The highlights were a group of Rock Bunting, Serin, Sardinian Warbler, Blackcap, Black Redstart and Crossbill with a toatl list of 17 species in an hour.

After breakfast we headed for Oliva/Pego marsh which produced 3 Booted eagle, 4 Bluethroat, Marsh Harrier, Meadow Pipit, Little Egret, and Cattle Egret with a total count of 13 species.

Our next stop was the saline lake in the center of  Calpe where we stopped for a picnic lunch and watched a large group of Greater Flamingo sunning themselves in the middle of the lake along with numerous Cormorant. Also present were 2 Grey Wagtails, several Shelduck a solitary Little Ringed Plover and a Black-winged Stilt.
A total of 9 species.

Penyal D'Ifac - Calpe

Our final stop was Ifac Rock which produced nothing more than we had seen during the day but was well worth visiting just for the fantastic views and the thousands of Yellow-legged gulls.

The final count for the day was 40 species.