Spent the morning at Ses Salines which turned out to be a rather chilly affair with light to moderate easterly winds and cloud making a huge change from the warm sunshine we’d become accustomed to.
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| Hide at Ses Salines |
From the hide we encountered a number of scarce and uncommon birds for Ibiza with Purple Heron, Great White Egret and a drake Common Pochard being most notable and very good records here. But it was the superb Marbled Duck feeding with a Gadwall that drew most attention and certainly got our pulses racing. This a rarity on this island and a bird I was personally very pleased to find here.
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| Marbled Duck - a rare bird in Ibiza |
There were also more Greater Flamingos than on our previous visit, at least 7 Pied Avocets, Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers and as we drove around the other side we had really great close looks at a stonking breeding-plumaged Common Greenshank.
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| Common Greenshank |
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| Greater Flamingo |
At the beach a Common Cuckoo was perched on a gate, a couple of European Turtle Doves were nice to see and hear and we also saw Whinchat, Northern Wheatear and European Pied Flycatcher. Returning to the hide a stonking male Common Stonechat got us all excited for a bit as it looked for all the world like an Eastern Stonechat, but the west Mediterranean birds look superficially similar…… My thanks to Daniel Lopez-Velasco for info on this.
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| West Mediterranean Stonechat |
So by now it was getting late and we returned to the villa for lunch and had a leisurely afternoon and an early finish.
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