Dawn to dusk birding in the national park proved to be a fantastic experience.  Pre-dawn we left El Rocio heading north-east.  Within minutes we’d had our first new species for the day, calling Quail.  Entering a belt of stone pines as the first rays of light crept across the eastern sky, and Eagle Owl swooped low across the road right in front of our car.  What an amazing piece of luck to see such a bird!  At Villamanrique we met up with North Wales birders Marc Hughes, his son Aled, Mike Duckham and Rob Sandham.  After a number of false starts and phone calls between cars (Where are you?  We’re over here?  Where’s here?) we eventually met up just south of the town.  This anonymous roadside provided us with a great start to our collective bird race with singing Nightingale, Bee-eaters, Sardinian Warbler, Serins, Crested Larks.  Now we were in convoy, we headed off in search of the visitor centre in the eastern section of the Donana NP.  According to the official leaflet, the centre is difficult if not impossible to find – and they weren’t wrong!  We confidently set off on what we thought was the correct track but soon found it to be a dead end.  However we did score some great birds: Great Reed Warbler, a new year tick, Black-crowned Night Heron, Wood Sandpiper, Purple Swamphen, and more Bee-eaters.  Retracing our steps we tried a different track.  This one looked more promising and we drove miles along a pot-holed gravel cart-track, seeing fantastic birds all the way along.  The undoubted highlight on this section was a flock of Pin-tailed Sandgrouse circling over the huge fields before coming into land where we were able to scope them and appreciate their amazing colours.  On we went, and the potholes got worse.  Each time we had to stop, get out, work out the best route to negotiate the huge gaping holes in the track and gingerly manoeuvre the BMW with minimum scraping of the underside – one driver and five people all giving directions at once!  Other highlights on this section were Purple Herons, Great White Egrets, a melanistic Montagu’s Harrier and singing Calandra Larks.The area became drier and we left the crops behind for sparsely vegetated cattle fields which looked ideal habitat for larks.  We weren’t wrong, scanning the fields soon produced more Calandra Larks, Short-toed Larks and then, our target bird for this area, Lesser Short-toed Lark, a new bird for the year.  Unbelievably the potholes became even worse and we had to abandon the BMW at a particularly deep set of craters.  We managed to continue all squeezed into the second vehicle which had higher ground clearance and a shorter wheelbase, and bounced our way along to finally reach the visitor centre.  What a relief!  An amazing building in the local style with thatched roof and huge double storey windows in the café overlooking a lagoon stuffed with Cattle Egrets, Purple Swamphens, Greater Flamingoes, Glossy Ibis, Shoveler, Black-necked Grebe, and thousands of Coots.  Our target bird here was Crested Coot and we started the daunting task of checking each and every one for the tell-tale fluffed feathers on the back and red knobs above the white shield on the forehead.  Luckily, the knowledgeable staff at the visitor centre were able to advise us that our best bet for locating this specific Coot was in fact at another site within the Donana, on our way back to El Rocio.  They also advised us on an alternative pot-hole free route out of the area, so back we headed in double-quick time to recover the BMW and try the new site.This time we were in luck; we drew up to the lake where around 50 Coots were swimming and lifting up the bins, we immediately picked out one individual with the distinctive feathering on the back, and the diagnostic red knobs on the forehead.  We headed back to El Rocio and set up our scopes overlooking the lagoon.  All the usual suspects were there:  Collared Pratincoles, Black-winged Stilts, Greater Flamingoes, Garganey, Glossy Ibis, Wood Sandpipers, and to cap it all a juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle.  What a great way to finish a superb day’s birding.  A total of 118 species for the day, including two new birds for the year.
Bird Species total: 1902
Posted 2nd April, El Rocio, Spain