Holiday Birding in Nerja, Spain May 31st – June 13th 2025
June was a fairly quiet birding month for us as from the 30th May we were in Spain for two weeks. We stayed mainly around the town on Nerja. We didn’t do any real birding, but we always seemed to be surrounded by a good number of them.
In the town of Nejra there were a lot of Monk Parakeets and at the Nerja caves we managed to get a Kestrel. Most of our casual birding was just around the hotel – Ona Marinas de Nerja – which was on the beach. We had a lot of contact with House Martins, which were nesting everywhere around the hotel and, especially, on our own balcony so we spent two weeks observing at a few feet, a female holding her nest and what looked to be at least two males fighting for her sole attention. Lots of scrapping ensued and we were treated to frequent fly-bys as the competing males checked out the nest.
Collared Doves were also everywhere as were the Spanish Sparrows. There must have been other birds around but they seemed quite furtive; however we definitely heard a Blackcap and a Greenfinch. Blackbirds were more obvious. Every morning, before the pools ned, the House Martins flew down to one of the pools and dipped their bellies into the water and flew off; I’m not sure if this was a way of delivering water to their young or a way of delivering water to maintain their nests but it didn’t seem to be for their own consumption as they never dipped their bills into the water.
I kept meant to go further afield to do some birding but there wasn’t anything locally available and it was very hot anyway so a lot of our birding was balcony birding. The one exception to this as one afternoon when we were sitting at a beach bar and a tern came flying quite low along the edge of the water. It had a stout but short bill that was totally black and it did not dip into the water as most Terns do. A quick look at Collin’s Bird Guide convinced me that it was a Gull-billed Tern, a bird that can be found on beaches as well as other places and which is not that uncommon in the area. We had a good chance to look at it as it slowly flew along the edge of the water – very nice and the best bird of the holiday.
Bird Sightings : Nerja, Spain June 2025
| Species | No |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blackbird |
| 2 | Blackcap |
| 3 | Bolle's Pigeon |
| 4 | Collared Dove |
| 5 | Greenfinch |
| 6 | Gull-billed Tern |
| 7 | House Martin |
| 8 | Kestrel |
| 9 | Monk Parakeet |
| 10 | Pied Wagtail |
| 11 | Spanish Sparrow |
| 12 | Swift |
| 13 | Yellow-legged Gull |