Tuesday 6th September 2016 Majorca

Early start...

After a very hot and humid night I took myself off for an early morning walk to the Punta d'Amer nature reserve, about 3km away from the hotel.

A very distant cruise ship at first light

Dawn was at around 07:30 so it was still quite dark when I set off, the Blackbirds were taking advantage of the irrigated grassy areas along the se front, 11 in total.

The reserve is typical marquis country with pine forest and a rocky shore line, the bird list got a bit longer this morning, with typical Majorcan species added, my bridge camera really does not handle low light conditions so photo's are few.

The list consisted of Woodpigeon,100's, Goldfinch 100's Spotted Flycatcher 10's Greenfinch, Linnet, Cirl Bunting 10's, Goldcrest, Blackbird Nightingale, Sardinian Warbler, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Stonechat, Grey Heron 2,  Falcon spp, (either a Hobby or Eleonoras but it was over the horizon before I saw it) Hoopoe and a Lark?, (I'm going to try and photograph this bird tomorrow to be 100%, having seen lots of Crested on Lesbos I'm happy this was sufficiently different to be Thekla Lark)

Spotted Flycatcher

Monday 5th September 2016 Majorca Spain

Hot hot hot.....

Today was forecast to be 36'c, it didn't feel that hot but now at 21:30 its very warm and humid..

Needless to say I've not done a great deal apart from sit in the shade, so this evening I went for a walk along the sea front and found some decent wildlife in  the form of a relatively rare gull.. Audouins Gull, so finding four together was a nice surprise.

This gull is rarely found away from the coast, preferring rocky areas and spending long periods at sea a real pelagic species.

adult Audouins Gull

Apart from the gull the bird list is poor, (not a lot to see from the sun lounger). with Turtle Dove, Woodpigeon, Yellow legged Gull, Red Legged Partridge and Western Orphean Warbler the only other species seen.

Badly lit Yellow-legged Gull

Tomorrow morning will hopefully see me exploring  a nearby nature reserve called     Punta de n'Amer, which is a scrubby coastal area.

Thursday 1st September

I will be on a short break on the island of Majorca, from 3rd to 11th September

Blog will be internet dependent while away....

Wednesday 31st August 2016

Bees....................

Last week we discovered that Honey Bees had moved in on the Barn Owl box in Pembrey Forest, given that both Barn Owls and Honey Bees are in need of a helping hand a small dilemma loomed, what to do?

The answer was quite easy the bees possibly came from one of the many hives in the forest and should be moved on to make way for any prospective Barn Owl.

As chance would have it I ended up talking to a visitor who turned out to be one of the local bee keepers and put him in touch with Simeon to make further arrangements.

This found us in the forest admiring the skills of John, the bee keeper, as he put in place the steps to encourage the bees to move from the nest box into a temporary hive for onward travel to pastures new, they will need to be ,moved about 3 miles to stop them coming back to the nest box.

Opps that's a lot of Honey Bees

It was very interesting to hear about the lives of the Honey Bee directly from someone who clearly is very passionate about these industrious insects, apparently the only farmed insect in the world.

Honey Bees are excellent parents, so part of the plan involved moving the brood chambers from the nest box into the temporary hive, the bees would instinctively look for the eggs and grubs and continue caring for them... well that's the plan!

Brood chambers

The one thing that we and John were impressed by was how docile the bees were despite the disturbance being caused, I was particularly pleased!!!

Calm or not John still had his smoker ready

difficult to see in the photo but the bees on the roof were "waggling" ,

waving their bodies/bums

With John satisfied that he had done all he could we stopped for lunch before continuing with our Wednesday tasks......

a more mundane job......

Monday 29th August 2016

Don't forget the extra net.......!

With limitations due to public access; I had this mornings ringing planned with military precision, nets planned last night pegs in place all I needed to do was put an extra net, with the two already in the bag,  ready to pick up this morning, on site for 5:30 and ready to go when I thought where's the extra net?? I know on the table in the house....

With just two nets and contemplating "what if.." a short session ensued, the clear conditions over night and the fact that there were NO hirundines at the roost last night should have been a clue to the quiet time I had.

Quality prevailed with a stunning Lesser Whitethroat in the first round with Blackcap and Common Whitethroat to follow.

Hard to beat I think..........

Lesser Whitethroat

Lesser Whitethroat

Blackcap

Saturday 27th August 2016

Early start pays off.....

Well it wasn't that early really, on site for 06:00 and just two nets set in the Sea Buckthorn/Gorse scrub near the information shelter., with a distinct nip in the air and a real autumnal feeling.

A steady run of birds including, Willow Warbler, Dunnock, Blackcap and Whitethroat, with the star bird of the session being a Pied Flycatcher, not only the first ringed at Pembrey Burrows, but the first I have ever ringed.

Common Whitethroat

Pied Flycatcher, aged on a combination of features

but middle tertial clinched the age as a 3, hatched
this year (hard to see in the photo's)

This bird was different to the bird I saw on Wednesday, which after discussing the photo with a friend was most likely and adult bird, while today's was definitely a bird of the year BTO code 3.

Pied Flycatcher

With Wednesday's bird being the first for the site and then today a second I wonder how many of this under recorded, (away from its breeding woods) summer migrant pass along the coast.

Pied Flycatcher

Wednesday 24th August 2016

You just never know what will turn up.....

I was just pottering along in the van this morning thinking about the day ahead when it occurred to me that there were quite a few birds in the scrub along the track to the information shelter.....

Then a bird flitted into view and landed in front of the van  and flew straight back up into the bushes, it took a few seconds for it to register that the bird was in fact a Pied Flycatcher, a ♀ type and a cracking record for the reserve.

Pied Flycatcher, record shot

The rest of the day was spent with the "Wednesday Crew" doing a range of tasks that seemed to involve a fair bit of dog poo!!!!, as well as rummaging through refuse skips for useful objects like an old bath.... (water trough for cattle).

On the wildlife front a Barn Owl box with a Honey Bees colony in residence was a startling sight, just as well we didn't have a ladder to check the box.

The sight of two quad bikes emerging over the top of the dunes brought smiles, (of course we were smiling not the idiots on the quads)....there is never a dull  moment in the countryside..