We had a short visit to El Clot today with our friend Dave who has just returned from England. We made our way towards the hide by the main pool and on the way we caught short glimpses of a Pied Flycatcher in the trees at the side of the path. At the hide we saw numerous Moorhens and a few Coots, including one Coot with two chicks. We also saw a female Mallard with about 14 ducklings. Several Pochards, Red Crested Pochards, Little Grebes and a male White headed Duck were on the water. A Great Reed Warbler was singing loudly and we could see it as it flew around occasionally perching on various reeds in front of us. At one point I was showing Dave something on my ‘phone when we heard a Coot crying out and when I looked a large bird was attacking it at the bottom of the reeds opposite the hide. John quickly identified the attacker as a Purple Heron. Brilliant! This is a bird I was hoping to see yesterday but failed. It didn’t stay long but flew quickly away. Sadly, we didn’t manage to see the Night Heron which friends, Paul and Greta have seen here recently.
After a while we left the hide and Dave headed home to collect Linda while John and I went for a look at the marsh hide. We had not been there long when a lovely Redstart appeared to our left giving us brilliant views of it. Unfortunately we didn’t have the camera with us. Typical! Male and female Sardinan Warblers were moving around in the Tamarisk trees and a couple of Jackdaws flew over. We left the Clot and headed to the Carabassi pine woods to see if a Spotted Flycatcher had arrived yet, but we found only Serins and Blackbirds. From here we continued to Santa Pola for lunch, and to catch up with Dave and Linda before we depart for England tomorrow.