El Clot and the beach road

posted in: Mary's Blog | 0

5th and 6th March – We made a couple of trips to the Clot this week hoping to find the Great Spotted Cuckoos or the Wryneck which have been reported recently by Mark Etheridge. We had no luck on Thursday but we did get great views of a Purple Swamphen, a bird we haven’t seen in the Clot for quite a while. A Green Woodpecker was calling and some of us had a brief glimpse of it as the bird flew. A few Teal and Shoveler were on the main pool along with a Little Grebe and the usual Coots, Moorhens and Mallards. A Snipe was feeding along the edge of the pool at the scrape together with a nice Grey Wagtail. Small birds were represented by Black Redstarts, Sardinian Warblers, Robins and Chiffchaffs.

Purple Swamphen by John Brazier©
Purple Swamphen by John Brazier©

On Friday we were travelling back from Santa Pola along the beach road and finally managed to see a Black Wheatear, a first for this year.  On our second visit to the Clot we found the Snipe again in the scrape, saw two Purple Swamphens in the main pool and added Pochard, House Martin, Goldfinch, Green Sandpiper, Marsh Harrier, Stonechat and our first Red rumped Swallows of the year, to the list. There were quite a few of them catching flies over the main pool. Still no Cuckoos but never mind.

Species list – Little Grebe, Cattle Egret, Shoveler, Teal, Pochard, Coot, Moorhen, Purple Swamphen, Green Sandpiper, Snipe, Marsh Harrier, Black Redstart, Robin, Grey Wagtail, White Wagtail, Sardinian Warbler, Chiffchaff, Green Woodpecker, Southern Grey Shrike, Jackdaw, House Martin, Red rumped Swallow, Crag Martin, Goldfinch.