Nick Bonds Birding

February 27th - March 5th 2008

Trip was excellent with quality more than quantity, highlights included - Tri-coloured Heron, Blue Chaffinch, Bolle's and Laurel Pigeons, Barbary Falcon and Partridge, Canary, Berthelot's Pipit, Plain Swift, Tenerife Blue Tit, Rock Sparrow, tintillon Chaffinch, Canary Islands Kinglet and Chiffchaff and many more Canary Islands endemics. Full details below :

February 27th - travelled from London Gatwick to Tenerife South, booked holiday through www.lastminute.com, 5 of us travelled, costing £188per person for flight and accommodation. Arrived at our resort Golf del Sur via taxi around 8pm

February 28th - Explored the resort area with Seth and Danny first thing. Golf del Sur has several golf courses that are reguarly watered, so we targetted the one which was next to our appartments. The Canary Islands Chiff Chaff were numerous, noticeable by the chup-chup song. Several were observed in the Sand Club appartment gardens. Collared Dove's and Spanish Sparrow's were also evident, Yellow-leggd Gulls drifted overhead. Blackcaps were in full song, and the resident Blackbirds feeding young already. Seth noticed a feeding group of hirundines that seemed to be feeding above the golf clubhouse buildings. Distant views of Red-rumped Swallow were had, but we were keen to take a closer look. A Grey Wagtail flew across the road in front of us. Walking up to the golf course village, several Barn Swallow's were perched on the house aerial's, there was a mixed flock including at least 5 Red-rumped Swallow's, 2 Sand Martin's, 2 House Martin's. These seemed to resting and feeding up around the pond area of the golf course. In the same area we found a stunning male Spectacled Warbler that showed well, it was only later Dan told us that this was a lifer for him!A Couple of Kestrel's were also seen arond the course. We needed cash and hire car, so went into the nearest resort San Blas, this resort caters for most your needs. Upon hiring a car, we headed out to Playa de Las Americas, to look for the Tri-coloured Heron that been present here for a month or so. I had to hand some location notes, but Playa de Las Americas is a big place so in the end we opted to dump the car and search the shoreline. This paid dividends with Seth first noticing the bird. Showed really well and was not too bothered by all the hustle and bustle of this busy resort. I managed to get many shots, with the best selected below. There was several other waders present on this beach including Little Egret, Whimbrel, Grey Plover, Sanderling, Ringed Plover, Turnstone, Dunlin were all seen here.

                               

 

          

 

                            

Tri-coloured Heron - Playa de Las Americas - 1st winter bird was feeding along this busy resorts beach

After feasting and spending some worthwhile time at Hooters Bar we headed back to the car seeing a bedragled looking Monarch butterfly along the way. We decided to head a little further south from where we were staying and checked out the natural park around Mount Roja. Here there is a small salt-water lagoon (La Mareta) that apparantley attracts waders etc, but the only birds of note which we found on-site were a couple of Berthelot's Pipit's. The site is described as 'normally extremely windy' I think that was the only thing the guide got right about this site!

   

Seth and Danny at Mount Roja

                                                          

February 29th  - More Lifers!

Heading out fairly early, the weather seemed rather clear so we decided to head for the mountains and more importantly....the Blue Chaffinch site! Las Lajas picnic site is said to be 'the' best place in the world to see this species. The site is based to the south of Mount Teide, which is well signposted from most main routes in the south, we took a gradual climb via San Miguel(not the drink)! and Villaflor to eventually finding this site. We did stop en-route, Seth spotting a couple of Barbary Partridge's on the road just north of Villaflor. We ended up spending some time here as we manged to see our first Canary of the trip, also other target endemic birds were seen here which included the Tenerife Blue Tit, Greater-spotted Woodpecker, Canary Islands Kinglet.

      

Las Lajas Picnic Site - excellent site for endemics including the excellent Blue Chaffinch

We then entered the picnic site with anticipation of seeing this truly spectacular sought after bird. Within minutes of leaving the car, we were all treated to fantastic views of this species. I spent a while observing this striking blue bird before the camera slipped out the bag and started clicking away. I stood in awe as this bird came so close at times, too close to focus! Also enjoyed this bird flying towards my head before perching in the Canary Pine tree behind me, before blasting out it's unique song. This place was magical...a couple of Canary Island Kinglet's moved through, many Canary's were feeding around the picnic tables taking the ocassional time out to show us it's display flight and song(according to some these can be difficult to observe here), the endemic Greater-spotted Woodpecker was also seen well here along with the common Tenerife Blue Tit. Berthelot's Pipit did not wanna miss out with a pair reguarly seen throughout, this is certainly the place to come to observe these specialities. Dan threw down an apple core and within minutes a Greater-spotted Woodpecker started feasting, but a Blue Tit found this irresistable, both allowing photo opportunities! Both species photographed feeding on Dan's apple below

Great-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major canariensis) - endemic resident subspecies - easilly seen in the right habitat

     

Tenerife Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus teneriffae) - endemic subspecies again fairly common

    

Canary (Serinus canaria) - abundant Macaronesian endemic

Berthelot's Pipit (Anthus berthelotti berthelotti) - Abundant tame Macaronesian endemic

               

       

Blue Chaffich (Fringilla teydea teydea) - Seen by us at two different sites including the world famous Las Lajas picnic site

We managed to pull ourselve's away from this site, and headed north towards Mount Teide where we stopped for a few tourist shots, the scenery was stunning with the amazing rock formations and surrounding lava fields.

     

    

Mount Teide - the highest peak in Tenerife and possibly Spain.....I'm not clever enough to tell you either way!!

We headed north past Mount Teide and found our next site....La Caldera. I really liked this site, there was a small picnic area and a restuarant/taverna here which seemed very popular with the locals. Looks potentially good here for butterflies in later months, it was here that we saw the endemic (Tintillon)Chaffich for the first time, I managed to see at least 4 different individuals and on one occassion a Blue Chaffich joined them feeding around the surrounding picnic areas. The Tenerife Kinglet was pretty abundant here, as were Canary Island's Chiff-chaff and Tenerife Blue Tit, there was also a Grey Wagtail present(photographed here below). Several local Robin's were heard singing around the car-park, but my they were difficult to see! This site also proved good for Greater-spotted Woodpecker's.

Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea canariensis) - one of several endemics - fairly common on the island

 We again moved further north towards Puerto de la Cruz. Our next site was a bit trickier to find, but as we headed up the foothills, Seth managed to net a Indian Red Admiral, earning us a few puzzling stares from a local farmer! Just as we reached the entrance to this site, many Plain Swift's were hawking overhead, I then spotted a Buzzard circling overhead. We had just reached Zona Recreativa Chanajiga with the track leading into deep laurel forest. We aimed to see pigeons here. We pulled up and scanned at any suitable spot, but we were out of luck, until scanning across one of the main valleys, i noticed a lone pigeon perched out in the open on a solitary branch...I called the others straight away...in their excitement tehy came hurtling towards me...I gestered to calm down and within seconds Dan and Seth were on the pigeon aswell, before the pigeon flew off around the corner, revealing in-fact it was our first Bolle's Pigeon, as it flew off it was joined by a second bird. And that was it...short but sweet views of Bolle's Pigeon. We then headed for home and got a little lost trying to find the main route out of Puerto de la Cruz, then also getting diverted off of the main stretch, ending us to navigate the north-west peninsula in total darkness..the road signage here really left a lot to be desired. Christ know's how Seth managed to stay awake driving in such conditions...apparantley the scenery on this route is stunning...if only we were here in daylight....one hell of a long day..but many lifers were seen by us all.

1st March - More Walking!

With the others stuck to their beds, I decided to head out alone and explore more around the golf courses in the resort. I headed north on a fine blustery morning. Many Blackcaps were in full song, Blackbird and Grey Wagtails were seen, for some reason Canary Island Chiff Chaffs were less numerous or vocal. There is some baron land next to an obvious roundabout with a waterfall and I decided to chck this out. A Sparrowhawk flew overhead, it was pretty birdless from the main tracks but as I headed towards the 3 water tankers several Berthelot's Pipit's were seen aswell as Spectacled Warbler's. The blustery conditions were making birding difficult, so I headed back to the appartment where the others had now surfaced. With Seth doing all that driving yesterday, I suggested sticking local and trying a nearby sea-watching site...Punta de la Rasca....looked pretty straight forward on the map, but again this site proved difficult to find. We ended up at a nearby recently developed site at Palm-mar. We parked up near the coast, greeted to by yet another Berthelot's Pipit and a Canary Blue butterfly was seen. A quick scan on the sea revealed some distant Cory's Shearwater's, Seth soon found at least 3 Bottlenose Dolphin's fairly close inshore. We decided to walk to the lighthouse, again exploring the firly un-known. This was turning into probably the warmest day of our trip so far, unless it was the sweat built up by all the walking....the lighthouse was further than it looked and the tracks pretty birdless, except several more Berthelot's Pipit's and a couple of Kestrel's. We eventually reached the lighthouse and sat for an hours sea-watch, plenty of Yellow-legged Gulls were present and really good views were had of Cory's Shearwater's which seemed to be lingering as opposed to passing through. Despite extensive looking, we failed to see anything else especially the hoped for Little Shearwater. We trudged back the several miles to the motor catching a Bath White butterfly along the way. Leaving Palm-Mar I noticed a Southern-grey Shrike perched on top of some scrub. We pulled the car over and soon realised there was two birds present, our first and only sighting of this species on the trip.

March 2nd - Erjos, more walking, Rock fight and a couple of lifer's thrown in!

Another early start saw us heading north in the search of Pigeon's again. We aimed to visit the famous Erjos laurel forests in the hope of finally nailing down a Laurel Pigeon. Heading north of Playa de Las Americas, me and Dan spotted a Barbary Falcon, Seth was rather miffed that he had missed it. This was a lifer for me, but would like to have had better views! We were using the guides and eventually found the site and also soon found that you can only drive so far, so we parked the car and walked a rather long distance through the forests, until we arrived at 'the obvious rock' as mentioned in several books. Before we reached this we did actually find a clearing and started scanning across the valley's. Seth soon picked out several pigeons. I soon started picking out pigeons as they flew rather distantly but the light was good, the first few I saw were Bolle's, Seth managed to see a Laurel Pigeon, I saw one shortly after, noticeably different from the Bolle's with the white band in the tail prominent, Dan smiled rather nervously as he was yet to see one, views of the pigeons were predictably brief and in-flight only. Dan finally managed to spy a Laurel Pigeon, so we all managed to get the target bird. Most of the sightings were of Bolle's. We managed to find 'the obvious rock' and all climbed up and rested up scanning for more pigeons. The track leading through the dense forest also hosted the Canary Island's Chiff-chaff, Blue Tit's, Tintillon Chaffinch, also a distant flock of Plain Swifts were seen from the car park, a pair of Indian Red Admirals were seen here aswell. We could hear Bolle's Pigeons calling away and truly matched the description of a Woodpigeon calling with a sore throat, there was an eerie feel about the place as mist rolled in eventually surrounding us and thus restricting views. The pigeons were becomming more active now and wind-clapping was heard on several occassions and Seth also found a tail feather. As we walked back more pigeons were heard and brief sightings were seen overhead. As we made the long walk back, boredom must have set in as we decided to have a spontaneous rock fight, somehow it manage to end up me against the other two, it actually got quite dangerous at times Would like to point out that i was throwing dry mud, potentially causing less damage to my victims heads. Fortunatley none of us managed to seriously hurt each other, but there were a few close shaves and the enemy were actually throwing proper rocks at times.....I think i won though lol! Going back to the birds, we managed to finally see a 'superbus' Robin. There was a noticeable difference with the breast looking a brighter deep red, a white eye-ring and more extensive grey around the breast, the song was also slightly different with the song seemingly shortened. The Tenerife Lizard was also fairly common at this site. Buzzards were also seen en-route on the return journey we checked the fields south of Santiago del Teide in the hope of Rock Sparrow but had to make do with a single Canary and a small flock of Linnets, which were to be our only ones of the trip!

March 3rd - Boat trip from Los Christianos

Again, woke before the others and left them in bed to nurse hangovers from the night before...I'm becomming a lightweight in my older years and had to quit soon after reaching the bustling San Blas nightclub, the latter reason was probably the better reason for quitting early as you could hardly call it a nightclub! Anyway, with the others tucked away, I was determined to make the most of the time we had left out here and decided to explore by heading by bus to Los Christianos. I think this was around 3euro's one way and the bus runs from our resort once an hour. The bus soon arrived and was soon heading around the back doubles to Los Christianos. Several Kestrel's were observed en-route aswell as two probable Barbary Falcon's which were seen in suitable habitat, one towards Costa Selencio, with the other roadside south of Guaza. Upon arriving in Los Christianos, I headed for the harbour to see how much the boat trips were aswell as the Fred Olsen boat to La Gomera. The Gomera boat worked out around 60euro's per person which would work out rather expensive whereas the two hour boat trip from the harbour was going for 18euro's per person. These boats run at 11.00am, 1.00pm and 3.00pm. I bought my ticket and booked myself on the 1 o'clock trip. The boat wat called the 'Monte Carlo', I managed to get through to Dan by phone to see if they were gonna make it down on-time, which they didn't so ended up taking the trip alone. I really enjoyed this trip, we headed out into the ocean, Yellow-legged Gull's numerous and about twenty minutes or so into the trip Cory's Shearwater's glided by sometimes at really close range allowing excellent views. About 45minutes into the trip, the first Pilot Whales were seen, intially a group of four, then a further group of four, one with a calf, these approached the boat really close and you could hear the whales breathing as they breached the water....fantastic stuff! I saw at least three seperate groups of whales and time flew by and were shortly heading back in-shore. We passed the area where we had seen the Bottlenose Dolphins the other day and noticed a Little Egret and a Grey Heron sitting on top of the fishing nets. All of a sudden there was mant egrets in the air above the boat, I noticed two rather larger egrets in amongst then, as I was observing one of these birds I clapped eyes on a falcon sp, being mobbed by gulls, it circled overhead as the boat headed into the harbour, the gulls not letting up, I was feasting my eyes on a Barbary Falcon, the views I was hoping to get, looking almost plain breast, with no obvious barring, looking slightly smaller than a Peregrine which I was familiar with, the boat was moving away from the birds overhead....I wanted to stay here and enjoy this spectacular and try and get more on those probable Great-white Egrets. I got chatting with two volunteers from whale-nation, who explained that the Pilot Whales we had seen on the trip were mainly Short-finned Pilot Whales, check out their interesting website by clicking on the link above. Arriving back in Los Christianos I decided to head back to the bus station and head for home to see what the others were upto, it was at this stage I received a text from Dan saying that he had made it into town, explaining that he had been playing a guitar with some stranger in the town square....I had just passed this square and heard a familiar tune being played by some random guitar player...if I would have looked up and paid attention, I would probably had a shock to see Dan sat in the middle of Los Christianos square busking....there again it is Dan we are talking about so I wouldn't have remained shocked for too long! After relaxing in a local bar and grabbing some food we headed for home, again by bus, not before Dan decided to try the local childrens playground out and falling of most of the apparatus on offer which caused great amusement to some local kids....taking my head out of my hands....in pure disbelief...I was relieved to see our bus had arrived......arriving back, I think I managed to persuade the others to make sure they hit the boat trip before they went home......tommorrow being the last full day!.....................

March 4th - Boat trip (again)!

Headed back to Los Christianos with the others this time to go back on the 'Monte Carlo', having enjoyed yesterdays trip so much, I paid to go on again with the hope of seeing something different....unfortunatley for me, I did not see anything different except for a white carrier bag in the sea to which Dan was claiming it was a Turtle!!! Shame on the pirate. The whales were not so easy today but gained a unique experience by viewing them from the lower deck, one was with a calf again....these trips are worth every euro and practically guarantee sightings, with the added excitement of knowing you could find something different! One sighting that got us all going was of an escaped Vulure sp, just above Los Christianos whilst en-route to catching the ferry, must have escaped from the nearby wildlife park! We checked out several local sites on the route back with nothing seen of note.

         

Short-finned Pilot Whales - These were observed offshore from the Monte Carlo boat trip from Los Christianos

5th March - Last day's birding at Villaflor

Having woken fairly early, we had a few hours before we had to vacate the appartment and take the hire car back. We headed north up into the foothills, following the same road that we took earlier in the trip to Las lajas. We decided to use that stop and scan tactic, in suitable looking habitat, to see what we could find. Canaries seemed very common as we headed north of San Miguel, Sparrowhawks and Kestrels were also seen as were a distant flock of Swifts. Tenerife Blue Tit's were evident, and several Barbary Partridges were flushed, we searched suitable habitat for Rock Sparrow, but again drew a blank. Tenerife Kinglet were heard in full song, Sardinian Warblers were also heard singing aswell, the road was fairly quiet, so allowed trouble-free observations. Upon reaching Villaflor we decided it was time to make our way back and found an interesting area, with a small plantation field to the south-west of Villaflor. Canaries were very common here, then we spotted 3 birds that were rather larger, I managed to eventually get my scope onto them and had very brief views of my first Rock Sparrow's, before the dropped low into the field and out of sight. I continued to scan through the large number of birds present here, again managing brief views, there were definatley 3 birds present but possibly more in the out-of-sight areas. A Grey Wagtail was also in the area. Time was against us so got the hire car back and vacated the rooms. The Sand Club appartments allowed us to store our excess luggage so we could chill out in the San Blas square, I soaked up the sun, watching the others feed Spanish Sparrow's! Our trip was over and was time to head home, fortunatley with no delays and a safe flight....the latest Widerscope adventure was at an end....Good trip!

There's a Hermit Crab in there somewhere you know!!! Danny and Seth checking out a rock pool on Playa de Las Americas beach

Systematic list of birds (highlights)

Canary Island's Endemic

Bolle's Pigeon (Columba bollii)

Laurel(White-tailed) Pigeon (Columba junoniae)

Canary Island's Chiff-chaff (Phylloscopus canariensis)

Canary Island's Kinglet (Regulus teneriffae)

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus teneriffae)

Blue Chaffinch (Fringilla teydea teydea)

Macaronesian Endemic

Plain Swift (Apus unicolor)

Berthelot's Pipit (Anthus berthelotii berthelotii)

Canary (Serinus canaria)

Subspecies confined to Canary Islands

Common Buzzard (Buteo buteo insularum)

Great-spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major canariensis)

Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea canariensis)

Robin (Erithacus rubecula superbus)

Sardinian Warbler (Sylvia melanocephala leucogastra)

Southern-grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis koenigi)

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs tintillon)

Linnet (Carduelis cannabina meadewaldoi)

Subspecies confined to Macaronesia

Cory's Shearwater (Calonectris diomedea borealis)

Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus granti)

Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus canariensis)

Yellow-legged Gull (Larus cachinnans atlantis)

Blackbird (Turdus merula cabrerae)

Spectacled Warbler (Sylvia conspicillata orbitalis)

Rock Sparrow (Petronia petronia madeirensis)

Book's/site guides used : Where to Watch Birds in Tenerife by Eduardo Garcia del Rey, Finding Birds in the Canary Islands by Dave Gosney, also various trip reports found on-line.

Weather throughout the trip : Very breezy at the resort itself throughout, but rather pleasant once the sun had burned through any cloud cover, also pleasant but rather cooler in the mountains, probably the warmest day was on the 28th where the was warm un-broken sunshine. Although the weather was not great, sun-cream and plenty of fluids would be recommended this time of year. We did have a short spell of rain on the 4th heading trough the foothills at Las Chozas.

Overall summary : Tenerife was a good choice for a week in the winter months, if you are on a budget and time limited, you could probably clear-up here in three days, but, if like us, you prefer a relaxing break and explore other areas that are not in the guides than a week is ample, car-hire is readily available and would recommend hiring straight from the airport as taxis from here do seem to be expensive if you are using them for transfers. Most of the resorts are very commercialised and very British orientated, if you enjoy getting away from all this, just head up into the mountains, the birding is also very good here aswell. We tried various restaurants/tavernas in the resort and all were fairly basic, the general feel was the opinion that most didn't offer great value. Los Christianos and Playa de Las Americas seemed better value and had more on offer. Obviously, as with other Canary Islands, there has been a lot of development over the last few years, so some sites are either no longer there, or the access routes have changed so you could end up wasting precious time looking for sites as we did trying to locate Punta de la Rasca. If you get time, it is worth taking one of the boat trips out of Los Christianos and visit Mount Teide, the scenery up here is stunning. Birdwise, I would like to have had more pro-longed views of the Laurel Pigeon and maybe connected with a Trumpeter Finch or two, but we managed to see all the specialities....and see them well, so no complaints there.....birding species wise is fairly restricted here, the golf courses seemed to have the most potential of turning up any migrants with 5 Red-rumped Swallow's found here as an example. Obvious highlights for me were seeing the Tri-coloured Heron, the Blue Chaffinch at Las lajas, the Tintillon Chaffinch, a totally different bird and should surely be split, the Barbary Falcon on the boat trip, fantastic views directly overhead and the amazing sight of the Pilot Whales, all fantastic memories which will stay with me a very long time!

Many thanks go out to my fellow travelling companions Seth, Dan, Jeanie and Sarah for a memorable trip, Seth for all the driving, Sarah for making the booking and dealing with the tickets/travel arrangements and to myself for finding a wonderfully cheap deal for everyone! Sonny deserves a special mention and should be remembered as a damn awful compere, who took it upon himself to make sure everyone had a terrible holiday!