A hot morning. We started birding at El Hondo Visitor´s Centre at San Felipe.
At first we had the impression that it was very quiet, but after meeting Rex things changed and we counted in the end 23 species on the board walk and near the 3 hides. The first hide gave us good views on 20 Little Grebes and a short view on two Little Bitterns. The second hide (“Volcam”) only showed us a vast dry desert (photo). The hide next to the Centre itself had it´s own 3 Marbled Ducks, and a Purple Swamphen that shyly avoided approaching them.
At the Carrizales it was quiet. Most exciting was a group of at least 30 Red rumped Swallows with great determination flying South, surprisingly accompanied by one Sand Martin.
El Pinet was good for waders. Among the 8 species we counted 20 Black tailed Godwits, and a interesting little grey one we saw too short for recognizing it. There were lots of terns, with still 5 very young Common Terns waiting at the water side for their parents bringing in fish. We were very pleased to see two Gull billed Terns, one adult, the other a juvenile bird.