Nick Bonds Birding

Introduction

How it all started?, well as part of the Surbiton and District Birdwatching Societies 'golden jubilee' it was decided that it would be good to organise a 'continental holiday' as part of the celebrations. Having never birded abroad before I was hardly the person to do this, but I took it on-board and it was decided that a break in mid-April to Southern Spain would be a good bet. Having consulted various individuals, it was decided to head for Coto Donana with view to staying at one or two bases for the duration. As the plan was slowly getting together and plenty of enquiries and homework later, i soon had seven other members interested in joining me. Flights were booked, accommodaion followed with a further two members deciding to join us aswell taking the total travelling to ten! The flight on the 14th April 2004 taking us from London Gatwick to Seville, hire cars collected and we headed for our accommodation in El Roccio. I was really looking forward to our first day as John Butler from Donana Bird Tours and his colleague Stephen Daly were taking the group out for the day to get us off to a good start and to get our bearings!

15th April 2004

We was met at our accommodation at 9.30am by John and Stephen but by then I had added a couple of lifers to my list with Crested Lark, Spotless Starling, Cattle Egret and White Stork all seen. We were heading out to the northern marshes on Donana and again many lifers were seen with Zitting Cisticola's, Booted Eagle, Black Kite, Bee-Eater's + Iberian(Azure-Winged) Magpies were all seen well with resident Serin's, Tree Sparrow's, Woodchat Shrike added to our growing trip list. What really brought it home to me was seeing a Bee-eater perched next to a male Woodchat Shrike on the same fence wire!