Lanzarote : 8th February 2015
We arrived on Lanzarote late afternoon of the 7th February and by the time we got to our hotel and settled in there was just time to find a restaurant, eat and get a fairly early night before our planned day of birding with Carmen from LanzaroteActiveClubs. The plan was to drive up to the El Jable desert near Soo looking for desert birds and then drive back down south to the Salinas de Janubio for a chance of interesting waders.
We met Carmen at 8am and set off straight away for the village of Soo. Our four- wheel drive land rover meant that we could go off road where you could never take a regular car and deep into the desert area. We soon started to see Lesser short – toed Larks, Short – toed Larks, Berthelot’s Pipits and Wheatear of the Isabeline sub – species.
A bit further on and we came across a rather shabby farmhouse where their roaming dogs did us the good service of stirring up a beautiful Stone Curlew that had been hidden just in front of our vehicle. The Curlew seemed to know the dogs well as it just hopped out of their way and immediately came back to where it had been before. The bird was the most vivid yellow around the eyes and bill. I had never seen one quite so colourful before and was really surprised at how splendid it looked.
Further on again and we saw a Hoopoe fly by and settle in a depression in the rocks, unfortunately remaining out of sight.
We met up with a fellow birder joining the tour and who had been delivered to a car park by one of Carmen’s colleagues and he accompanied us for the rest of the morning and the afternoon. We re-entered the desert and it wasn’t too long before we spotted a Houbara Bustard in flight. We stopped the vehicle and got out. By the time we got our bins on the bird a second bird had joined it. We got fantastic views of a bird we had expected only to see (if at all) on the ground. When they disappeared we got back in the vehicle and started off down more tracks.
One unexpected circumstance was that the empty desert we had expected was full of people. It being a Sunday, the locals were out in force foraging in the desert for the rare truffle-like fungus,“papas crías”, that grows in the desert in Lanzarote at this time of year, especially after winter rains. With the, heavier than usual, rains of December had come a bumper crop. At €50 a kilo, truffle-hunting is a popular weekend day out for people – and a profitable one. It may have been as a result of this that we never managed to see any Cream-coloured Coursers despite them being relatively common in El Jable. It is of interest that the December rains had turned the whole of southern Lanzarote a gentle green – a thing we had never seen before. Where there wasn’t green there was bright yellow lichen on all the lava. The further north one went, the more flowers were evident.
Getting back to birding; despite the many people wandering around, it wasn’t too long before we came across another Houbara Bustard but this time it was on the ground. We saw more Larks and Pipits and some of us saw Linnets. The number of Southern Grey Shrikes was also remarkable, we even started seeing them in pairs. Our attention was drawn to a large number of Ravens flying around near a farm. The Ravens here and throughout the Canary Islands are of the north African race, Corvus Corax tingitanus. Carmen decided we should have a look at this farm so we drove up to speak to the farmer. It transpired that he had a mountain of out of date sliced bread in a big mound in his field near to where he was keeping goats and chickens. This white sliced bread was their diet and the local Ravens had taken a liking to it themselves and this is why so many had collected in the one spot.
We continued on for a while longer in the desert before it was time for us to go to our next birding location, the Salinas de Janubio, not too far from Playa Blanca where we were staying.
We had been to the Salinas de Janubio on our own several times but we hoped to get a different take on it by having a guide with us. This was a Sunday so there were no workmen there and we could get to parts of the salt pans we had not felt able to go to on previous visits. Carmen claimed that the owner had given her unwritten permission to take groups to the working parts of the salt pans on non-working days of the week so we were pleased to be able to go to the more private sections of the pans.
We worked our way from the car park along the edge nearest the main road. Our first bird were a pair of Black-winged Stilts then a Common Sandpiper and a Greenshank. As we worked our way along towards the land side it was obvious that there were around a couple of dozen Stilts at various points of the lagoon. We walked towards the middle of the landward side of the lagoon and then we could get better views of a flock of birds on the water, perhaps about sixteen of them. Closer inspection showed them to be Black-necked Grebes. Also on the water were a pair of Ruddy Shelduck looking extremely ruddy indeed. In one of the little inlets the Stilts were accompanied by more Greenshank, Redshank and Common Sandpipers.
Far off to the left on the edge of another lagoon we could see more Stilts with a single Avocet amongst them. Our final bird of the day was a Barbary Falcon perched on a stone wall at the seaward end of the lagoon. We tried to get closer to it but by the time we got to that end of the lagoon it had flown. We did see a very nice Whimbrel on the way back though.
A fantastic start to our birding in Lanzarote with some great endemics and some other classy birds as well. We intended to go back to these two sites and try our luck unaided by a guide. How would we get on ?
Bird Sightings : Bird List Lanzarote 8th February 2015
| Species | Scientific Name |
|---|---|
| Avocet | Recurvirostra avosetta |
| Barbary Falcon | Falco pelegrinoides |
| Black-necked Grebe | Podiceps nigricollis |
| Black-winged Stilt | Himantopus himantopus |
| Collared Dove | Streptopelia decaocto |
| Common Sandpiper | Actitis hypoleucos |
| Greenshank | Tringa nebularia |
| Little Egret | Egretta garzetta |
| Redshank | Tringa totanus |
| Ruddy Shelduck | Tadorna ferruginea |
| Spanish Sparrow | Passer hispaniolensis |
| Whimbrel | Numenius phaeopus |
| Yellow-legged Gull | Larus michahellis |
| Berthelot’s Pipit (berthelotii) | Anthus berthelotii berthelotii |
| Cattle Egret | Bubulcus ibis |
| Hoopoe | Upupa epops |
| Houbara Bustard | Chlamydotis undulata |
| Isabelline Wheatear | Oenanthe isabellina |
| Kestrel | Falco tinnunculus |
| Lesser Short-toed Lark | Calandrella rufescens |
| Linnet | Carduelis cannabina |
| Raven | Corvus corax |
| Short-toed Lark | Calandrella brachydactyla |
| Southern Grey Shrike | Lanius meridionalis |
| Stone-curlew | Burhinus oedicnemus |
Life Ticks
Barbary Falcon (Falco pelegrinoides)
Raven (Corvus Corax tingitanus)
Houbara Bustard (Chlamydotis undulata)
Lesser short-toed Lark (Calandrella rufescens)
Short-toed Lark (Calandrella rufescens)
Isabelline Wheatear (Oenanthe isabellina)