Tabarca Island Field Trip – David Roe

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The club’s first field trip since February 2020 saw 11 people attend. The heavy rain during the night before and the contradictory weather forecasts for the day of the trip might have discouraged more members from attending.

We boarded the 10:00h boat in Santa Pola harbour for the crossing to Tabarca. Sandwich Terns and Yellow-Legged Gulls were seen in the harbour. The boat trip didn’t produce any more birds and got a little bouncy in the last 5 minutes before arriving on Tabarca.

From the harbour, we headed east towards the large tower and then on to the lighthouse. We then walked back on the path by the south shore, before going back to the tower and towards the harbour. There were Yellow-Legged Gulls everywhere, Sardinian Warblers were flying from bush to bush and Cormorants and Shags were seen on the rocky islands off the south shore. Unfortunately, there was very little else. The best sighting was a Western Orphean Warbler.

Because of the lack of birds, we made a unanimous decision to get the 13:45h boat back to Santa Pola and head to one of our favourite restaurants, Tano’s. After a very good lunch, during which we planned the field trips from October to January, we all agreed that it had been an enjoyable day…despite the lack of birds!

The full list of birds seen on the trip was: Audouin’s Gull, Barn Swallow, Common Tern, Cormorant, Feral Pigeon, House Sparrow, Little Tern, Rock Dove, Sandwich Tern, Sardinian Warbler, Shag, Western Orphean Warbler, Yellow-Legged Gull.