Lanzarote : 11th February 2015

Lanzarote : 11th February 2015

On the 11th of February we decided to retrace our steps at El Jable to see if we could find any of the desert birds we had seen a couple of days previously with our guide Carmen. I had made a GPS track of our day out and this enabled me to find the track off the main road just between Munique and Soo on the LZ-401. Dave Gosney’s book, “Finding Birds in the Canaries” actually marks the very same path into the desert (pages 36–37) but I forgot to look at this first. So, the question was would we find these birds on our own ? The answer was a resounding “yes”

When we were with Carmen she had a land rover but we just had a hire car that was not insured to drive on these, sometimes very rough, tracks. An ordinary car doesn’t really hack it on these paths so we had to go on foot. We had not walked too far before Anne drew my attention to a Houbara Bustard up on a slope with it’s head just above the skyline. Closer inspection revealed that there were actually three of them. Gosney mentions with some amazement that an acquaintance of his once reported “four Houbara from this track …. one only 300 metres from the road”. Well, we may only have seen three but they might even have been closer than that to the road as it curved round beyond where we had parked.

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I managed to get very distant photographs with a cheap but light 300 mm lens  but I wanted to get closer to get a good shot. We slowly edged towards the group of birds hoping not to flush them but as I looked back I saw a land rover with people with scopes by it. We had alerted them to the Houbara and I did not want to spoil it for them before they had a good look at the group. Accordingly I slowly walked away from the birds and went up to the land rover and with some amusement discovered it was Carmen, our guide, with some of her co-guides on a day off. A bit ironic really as we ended up guiding them. Unfortunately for me one of their group had no qualms about getting close with his camera and he flushed them before I could edge closer for a second time. It just goes to show that all is fair in bird photography and war. Next time I won’t be so considerate.

Perhaps we had the last laugh though because we hadn’t managed to see any Cream-coloured Coursers when we had been out with Carmen before and they hadn’t seen ant so far that day but just after they drove off Anne managed to pick out two of them scurrying away from another vehicle that had flushed the. As is their habit, they did not fly off but walked away at speed giving us very nice views and another life tick. In fact we had seen a Courser in flight earlier but we’re unsure until Carmen confirmed it from a description we gave her of the bird in flight.

We continued along the path seeing Lesser Short-toed Larks and Berthelot’s Pipits but nothing more exceptional until we saw in front of the distant Risco de Famara cliffs a pair of circling large birds obviously rising on the thermals associated with the cliffs (They were not alone as there are many hang gliders that use the thermals from this feature to gain great heights – and some real danger). It just had to be Egyptian Vulture and a look on the Web later confirmed our belief.

We headed off to Caleta de Famara for a spot of lunch picking out a couple of Hoopoes en route. At the coast there were numerous Yellow-legged Gulls but nothing else.

We decided to return home to Playa Blanca via a volcano that we had walked before, Montano Cuervo.  This is a small volcano which has collapsed at one side so it is possible to easily walk into the centre of it and see the whole thing from inside. There had been Barbary Falcons breeding there but too many people walking to the top up the slopes (no easy feat) had scared them off. Carmen told us that some recent fencing had prevented the worst of the damage and disturbance and that Barbary Falcons had returned. She said that they had been there that morning and had seen a pair showing well.

Since the Montano Cuervo was on our way back we couldn’t resist a quick look but we stopped off for a little wine tastings first at the El Grifo wine making museum which is on the road through La Geria, the wine making area of the island. Whilst looking around their gerias Anne spotted a pair of Trumpeter Finches and we both saw a Linnet, a Great Tit, and a (ubiquitous) Berthelot’s Pipit or two.  Another life tick !

On to Montano Cuervo and we were lucky to get a parking spot near the short track to the volcano. Luckily there were no tourist busses so it was quite quiet and we managed to be inside the volcano on our own. At first nothing but Collared Doves but eventually a distinctly hawk – like bird flapped it’s wings vigorously as it flew from one side of the volcano to the other. A bit of flapping around and it eventually settled out of sight on the rim of the volcano. A walk back to the entrance gave us good, clear views again and after ten minutes we decided to head back to the car. As we did so the rain came down and with the wind as well we got back to the car thoroughly soaked – but happy

Bird Sightings : Bird List Lanzarote 11th February 2015