13/04/2025
A very productive tour with the Dutch company BirdingBreaks last Thursday. In the pine forest we had good sightings of bee-eaters, woodchat shrike, Iberian grey shrike and melodious warbler. Later in the cork oak forest and marsh edge we had species like spoonbill, glossy ibis, greater flamingo, Sardinian warbler and great spotted cuckoo.
The marshes in Doñana are fully flooded and the numbers of birds increase day by day. Large flocks of flamingos spread all over. We had interesting species like gull-billed tern, whiskered tern, slender-billed gull, collared pratincole, Kentish plover, black-winged stilt, avocet, squacco heron, purple heron, purple swamphen, white-headed duck, marbled duck, red-crested pochard, red-knobbed coot, greater short-toed lark and lesser short-toed lark, calandra lark and great reed warbler. We got to see all Doñana's specialities.
The heronry at José Antonio Valverde is getting bigger and bigger day by day. Thousands of egrets and herons concentrate there to breed. Species like night heron, purple heron, little egret, cattle egret, glossy ibis and squacco heron get together in big numbers and can be easily spotted from the center.