More Canaries

I'm out of action. For today’s post I put together more archived material. This selection is from January 2013, a winter escape to Fuerteventura, just 60 miles from the coast of Morocco, North Africa.

Fuerteventura is the oldest Canary Island, formed about 70 million years ago as a result of volcanic activity. The geographical position of Fuerteventura means that for many tens of thousands of years sand from the Sahara has been deposited on Fuerteventura's shores, resulting in 125 miles of the world's finest beaches. 

Beach Fuerteventura

Fuerteventura Beach

Little Egret

I volunteered to check out a few beaches for waders and clocked up Kentish Plover, Ringed Plover, Turnstone, Sanderling, Whimbrel, Grey Plover, Redshank, Greenshank, Bar-tailed Godwit and Curlew.  Lots of Sandwich Terns buzzed along the shoreline too, West Africa being a hot-spot for seeing the species.

Sanderling 

Kentish Plover

Whimbrel

Sandwich Tern

Anyone planning a trip to Fuerteventura should be forewarned that the island is something of an exhibitionist paradise.  Couples of all persuasions think nothing of walking hand in hand along  the fine sand beaches.

Beach Bums, Fuerteventura  

Although holding a certain attraction, the beaches of Fuerteventura weren’t the sole interest of the holiday. A hire car for a few days gave a chance to explore the island although at approximately 650 square miles there’s a lot of ground to cover. A pure white car may not have been ideal for approaching cautious birds like Cream-coloured Courser, Stone Curlew or Houbara Bustard, the birds of the sandy plains.

Fuerteventura

Over the Plains Fuerteventura

Cream-coloured Courser

Stone Curlew

There were lots of Lesser Short-toed Larks on the dry, open plains with small gangs of Linnets and occasional Desert Grey Shrikes. The Linnets were very unapproachable, likewise the Goldfinches that can be glimpsed in greener parts of the island. The Linnets in the Canary Islands belong to the race/subspecies Linaria cannabina mediterranea, and in these desert islands have a sandy appearance. 

Linnet

Desert Grey Shrike

Lesser Short-toed Lark

We journeyed through the centre of the island through the village of Betancuria and on to the highest parts of the island at 600 metres, giving a spectacular outlook on the landscape below and distant views of an Egyptian Vulture. This species is apparently now rare on the island as they are elsewhere in its range and we had just two sightings of the vulture in two weeks.

Egyptian Vulture

Fuerteventura January 2013

Fuerteventura

Fuerteventura, January 2013.

Inland birds and around the village of Betancuria proved to be Sardinian Warbler, Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Kestrel, African Blue Tit, Spectacled Warbler and Trumpeter Finch. The latter three were all new birds for me with the wary Trumpeter Finch a particular favourite, due to its slightly comical appearance.

Betancuria - Fuerteventura

Betancuria - Fuerteventura

Trumpeter Finch

A few Spectacled Warblers were in song, and we guessed the breeding season to be early in these parts.

Spectacled Warbler

The so named Canary Islands Stonechat Saxicola dacotiae is found only on Fuerteventura where it is said to frequent dried up river beds, the "barrancos", dotted around the island. I found them in a couple of locations where houses ran down to the beach, one time finding one feeding on the tide wrack with Berthelot’s Pipits. This endemic species is very like a very dark-headed Whinchat rather than a Stonechat but it has the chat like habits of both.

Berthelot's Pipit

Canary Islands Stonechat - CC-BY-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

 

Fuerteventura

We enjoyed our single visit to Fuerteventura and Costa Calma, a large bay approximately 1.5 km long.  Southwards it is possible to walk along the beach to Morro Jable for approximately 21 km.  

Costa Calma Hotel

In the quiet parts of the hotel grounds were Spanish Sparrows, a pair of Hoopoes, the resident Kestrel and at least one White Wagtail, following  the gardener’s watering hosepipe so as to locate insects. There were Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs about the grounds but they kept out of sight in the strong sunshine of most days.

Hoopoe 

 Spanish Sparrow

Kestrel

African Market, Costa Calma

As very birder knows, there’s a price to pay for a spot of birding, brownie points to be earned and then banked for another day with bins and camera. Here in Costa Calma it’s the “African” market where bartering is the order of the day followed by a glass or two of wine reflecting on the fading light and planning the day to come.

Fuerteventura

More soon. Stay tuned.

Linking this post to Anni's Birding Blog and Eileen's Saturday.

From The Archive

There’s no local news today. I’m not getting out birding and unlikely to do so whilst this foul weather hangs around. Instead I robbed the archives from a winter holiday that Sue and I took to sunny Lanzarote, the Canary Islands almost five years ago. 

Lanzarote is well known as a fairly windy island. Part of the reason the climate is so good is because of the Atlantic wind which blows there on most days; without it temperatures would be much higher and the island would effectively become a desert, like the nearby Sahara, 125 kms away. Maybe it was the Sahara dust, the fluctuations in the daily temperatures caused by the winds or some other factor, we don’t know. But we always came home with the Lanzarote Sniffles or a full blown cold.

In 1993, the island of Lanzarote was declared a Biosphere Reserve as it conserves one of the most exceptional ecosystems and volcanic landscapes in the archipelago. Lanzarote was born through fiery eruptions; the solidified lava streams and extravagant rock formations bear witness to that.

The island along with others in the Canary Islands emerged about 15 million years ago after the breakup of the African and the American continental plates. The greatest recorded eruptions occurred between 1730 and 1736 in the area now designated Timanfaya National Park. This is an area where most tourists head to in order to see the spectacular displays of cold water poured onto the ground turning immediately to a spout of steam. As we drive along stopping here and there to explore it is impossible to pause without taking pictures of the dramatic and often deserted landscapes.

Timanfaya

Camel Ride at Timanfaya

 Lanzarote

Lanzarote

The number of bird species is quite low in Lanzarote, even more so during the winter, so anyone arriving here expecting to add a few dozen new species to their list might be sorely disappointed.

The tiny Berthelot’s Pipit is endemic to the Canary Islands and is very common on Lanzarote, almost impossible to miss until its grey-toned plumage melts into the rocky backdrops.

Berthelot's Pipit

The common gull around here is the magnificent Yellow-legged Gull, looking all the more stunning against the volcanic shorelines.

Yellow-legged Gull

The vineyards of La Gería with their traditional methods of cultivation, are a protected area. Single vines are planted in pits 4–5 m wide and 2–3 m deep, with small stone walls around each pit. This agricultural technique is designed to harvest rainfall and overnight dew and to protect the plants from the winds. The vineyards are part of the World Heritage Site as well as other sites on the island.

 La Geria, Lanzarote

 

We always planned at least a couple of visits to the salt pans and tidal lagoons at Janubio in the south west of the island where we hoped for a good variety of very common waders. Almost guaranteed here are scarce UK birds like Black-winged Stilt and Kentish Plover mixed in with the everyday Ringed Plover, Little Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Redshank, Greenshank and Grey Plover of home.

Saltpans - Janubio, Lanzarote

Kentish Plover

Black-winged Stilt

We always stayed at Hotel Costa Calero where along the nearby beach and rocky shore were found Common Sandpiper, Turnstone, Sanderling, Whimbrel, and a steady stream of Sandwich Terns fishing the clear waters. 

Hotel Costa Calero

Common Sandpiper

Turnstone

Near Calero

Near the hotel were residential streets with large gardens and decent amounts of shrubbery with common birds like Collared Dove, Chiffchaff, House Sparrow and Desert Grey Shrike. The shrike, part of the "Grey" shrike complex and formerly known as Southern Grey Shrike, is now considered to one of the several sub-species of  Lanius elegans, the North African Desert Grey Shrike.

Desert Grey Shrike

Desert Grey Shrike

Where avenues petered out into the typical dusty, dry Lanzarote landscape Linnets and Berthelot’s Pipits appeared, and with luck, a few Trumpeter Finches or Lesser Short-toed Larks. The related Short-toed Lark (the one with the unstreaked breast) is but a rare visitor to Lanzarote.

Lesser Short-toed Lark

Trumpeter Finch

Sunny wind free days were spent looking on the plains in the area of El Jable and Teguise for Houbara Bustard and Cream-coloured Courser, never easy to find but two of the real speciality birds of Lanzarote.

Cream-coloured Courser

Houbara Bustard

Near El Jable

The Alfa didn't drive nearly as good as it looked. A sluggish, noisy and polluting diesel engine.

Alfa Romeo

It's looking like Tuesday before the weather here improves enough for birding or ringing.

Meanwhile, over at Gulf Lane a Linnet flock has numbered anywhere between 120-200 birds. Andy and I cut a square of vegetation down to soil in readiness for a session with a whoosh net. All we need now is for a half decent morning to have a crack.

Linking today to Anni's birding blog and Eileen's Saturday Creatures.

    

Mister Goldfinch

I’ve not been out much this last week, mainly because of the dreadful weather. A couple of trips out proved fruitless in the way of birding, ringing or photographs. Andy and Sandra have just returned from sunny Morocco. I'm hoping they brought back sunny weather and she'll let him out to play soon.  

I did manage a few sessions of garden ringing where I hoped to catch Goldfinches and perhaps the tiny male Sparrowhawk that appears intermittently and chases off the Goldfinches. Having said that, a recent kill was a Collared Dove where a large circle of feathers on the grass in the far corner of the garden proved testament to a Sparrowhawk’s deadly skill. 

Sparrowhawk 

Goldfinches get lots of mentions on Another Bird Blog. The reason is that our UK Goldfinch is now a very, very common bird in the countryside and in both towns and cities. It has quickly become the most common bird in gardens large & small and easily overtaken the once abundant House Sparrow. My own garden is a good example of where a glance outside on a typical day will see anything between two and twenty Goldfinches flitting between the tree tops and the eight bird feeders. 

Some days the Goldfinches go missing altogether. I suspect that there is now a fairly settled winter local population which splits up each morning as birds head off in various directions on well-known and trusted routes to sources of food. I know when they are around. Their contacts calls and tinkling winter song fills the air as one by one, two by two, they fly into the tree tops and descend to the branches and feeders below. 

Some individuals know my garden well. They are the ones that have a feed and then fly under or over the single mist net placed strategically east to west. And then there are the equally clever ones that fly alongside the net north or south without a right or left turn that would result in their being caught. The ones that blunder into the net may not have been here before. It’s a logical theory when taking into account how innocent fledglings of summer and autumn are more easily caught. By mid-winter even, many are yet to become familiar with the often illegitimate ways of man.      

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Goldfinch

Results from the BTO Garden BirdWatch survey show that Goldfinch numbers continue to boom in gardens. Garden bird foods and feeders have spread markedly over recent decades, enabling our UK Goldfinches to quickly exploit a niche that other birds failed to spot. 

An adult Goldfinch is unmistakable with its red, white and black head, gold wing-bars and black and white wings. Although males and females look similar, the red mask of the male extends back behind the eye, whereas that of the female doesn’t. Recently fledged birds do not acquire the red face until late in the summer or during early autumn. While the features to separate male and female is accepted as the norm it is thought not quite 100% reliable. 

Goldfinch - Svensson

 Goldfinch

Goldfinch 

 Goldfinch

Bird ringers who catch and then later recapture some individuals in the breeding season will confirm that the now revealed breeding characteristics may contradict the earlier sexing of the bird according to the literature in Svensson or elsewhere. 

This problem is not easily solvable since the recapture rate of Goldfinches seems quite low under normal circumstances, even less so when looking to capture adult Goldfinches during the breeding season. Many of these individuals may wander far and wide and also migrate outside of the summer months. 

Goldfinches favour small, oil-rich seeds, such as nyjer and sunflower hearts that householders buy in large quantities for garden feeding stations. Agricultural intensification has resulted in reduced availability of natural weed seeds as garden feeding stations become increasingly important for birds like the Goldfinch, so much so that the Goldfinch’s success has been a major factor in the species’ population explosion. Such seeds now appear more popular with buyers than the once ubiquitous peanut, probably because once outside the oily seeds remain attractive and do not deteriorate as quickly a peanut.  Many is the time I have put out peanuts to find that after a few days of our British weather the nuts turned to a rather unpleasant mush that had to be removed for safety reasons. 

With agricultural intensification resulting in reduced availability of weed seeds, garden feeding stations are increasingly important for birds like the Goldfinch. 

Feeding Station 

After this morning’s rain truncated effort of 7 Goldfinches ringed (and 15 or more adopting avoidance tactics), I checked my figures on the BTO's DeMon - 385 Goldfinches caught and of those, 379 new and just 6 subsequent recaptures. 

Goldfinch has overtaken Linnet as my “the most encountered bird”.  We really must get back to those Linnets soon. 

Most Encountered Bird 

Goldfinch

Well at least I’m not Mr Blue Tit.

Linking this post to Anni's Birding Blog.