Sunny Days

This is a short post from Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain where Another Bird Blog is exchanging the UK winter for a few days in the sun.

There are scenes and birds from Lanzarote holidays past and I am back in the UK soon to relieve the house sitter of domestic niceties. In the meantime and subject to the island's attractions I’ll try to keep in contact with Blogger friends through my netbook and the hotel WiFi. 

Hotel Costa Calero, Lanzarote

The common pipit in the Canary Islands is the undistinguished Berthelot's Pipit, so named after the French naturalist Sabin Berthelot, a one time resident of the Canary Islands. The pipit can be unobtrusive, feeding away quietly in the often grey, volcanic landscape of Lanzarote. When it calls it is somewhat reminiscent of a Yellow Wagtail but of course looks nothing like one.  

 Berthelot's Pipit

There can't be a single tourist who's not been to the famous Teguise Market.

Teguise - Lanzarote 

A visit or two to the Salinas and the coastal Laguna of Janubio is usually worthwhile to see species like Black-winged Stilt and Kentish Plover plus commoner waders like Greenshank, Redshank, Common Sandpiper, Grey Plover and Little Stint.   

Janubio - Lanzarote

Black-winged Stilt

 Common Sandpiper

The taxonomy of the Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus is undergoing current research. Here on the Canary Islands there are two subspecies, one in the Western Canaries F. t. canariensis  and one in the Eastern Canaries F. t. dacotiae. Here on Lanzarote I guess I'm seeing the latter but as a rather unapproachable bird it is difficult to see much variation from our nominate UK Kestrel.

 

Kestrel

Below is a picture of the ubiquitous Spanish Sparrow, although of course the House Sparrow is also to be found in the Canary Islands, so where Sparrows are about best to look at the males to be 100% certain which species I'm looking at.

 

Spanish Sparrow

The Green Lagoon, Charco de los Chicos, Lanzarote

More news and views from Lanzarote soon.