I had a really good trip to Mallorca earlier this month. We did not hire a car so we restricted our birding to S'Albufuera and the Boquer Valley. In total we saw about 70 species which wasn't too bad. As we did not travel too far we missed some species such as Black Vulture.
We sayed in Ca'an Picafort which is quite close to S'Albufuera and had Audouin's Gulls on the beach all the time. A little wasteland between our Hotel and the reserve had Bee-eaters in the pine trees.
S'Albufuera is great and it's free! Managed to see Crested Coot here as well as Little Bittern, Stone Curlew, Collared Pratincole, Garganey, Kentish Plover, Eleanoara's Falcon, Bee-eater, Nightingale and Great Reed Warbler. Cetti's Warbler and Zitting Cisticola were very common. On our last visit the Kentish Plovers were harrassing Black-winged Stilts in fron of the Bishop Hide.
We paid two visits to the Boquer Valley, the first was more productive for warblers with Balearic, Sardinian and Subalpine all seen while the second was better for raptors with Marsh Harrier, Kestrel, Eleanora's Falcon, Peregrine Falcon and Booted Eagle all seen. Here we also saw the only mystery bird of the trip in one bin view we had a dark phase Booted Eagle being mobbed by two smaller raptors, one was a male Common Kestrel while the other was smaller than that with almost competely white underparts. The only species I can identify this as is Lesser Kestrel but they don't occur on Mallorca. My wife is convinced that's what it was. We did, however fail to see Blue Rock Thrushes in the valley.
Even without the car we had a great trip and would go back in an instant. Thanks for all the info people gave us.
Here's the full list
Common Shelduck
Mallard
Gadwall
Northern Shoveler
Garganey
Red Crested Pochard
Little Grebe
European Shag
Black-crowned Night Heron
Little Bittern
Squacco Heron
Cattle Egret
Little Egret
Great Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
Marsh Harrier
Booted Eagle
Common Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel
Eleanora's Falcon
Peregrine Falcon
Red-legged Partridge
Water Rail
Purple Swamphen
Common Moorhen
Crested Coot
Common Coot
Stone Curlew
Collared Pratincole
Black-winged Stilt
Kentish Plover
Little Plover
Little Stint
Dunlin
Common Redshank
Common Greenshank
Wood Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Audouin's Gull
Yellow-legged Gull
Common Tern
Whiskered Tern
Feral pigeon
Common Woodpigeon
Eurasian Collared Dove
European Bee-eater
Eurasian Hoopoe
Common Swift
Pallid Swift
Yellow Wagtail
Barn Swallow
House Martin
Crag Martin
Nightingale
Common Stonechat
Common Blackbird
Zitting Cisticola
Cetti's Warbler
Eurasian Reed Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Blackcap
Sardinian Warbler
Balearic Warbler
Subalpine Warbler
Common Chiffchaff
Willow Warbler
Firecrest
Spotted Flycartcher
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Common Raven
Spotless Starling (Barajas Airport, Madrid)
House Sparrow
Chaffinch
European Serin
European Greenfinch
Common Linnet
Cirl Bunting
Cheers
David
Thanks for the report, very interesting. I'm going Thursday for a week, staying very close to S'Albufuera. It's mainly a family holiday but I'll be out on the marsh most mornings hopefully. Did you take the bus to the Boquer valley and if so did they run regularly and more importantly, is there a nice beach in Port de Pollenca where I can dump the family while I go birding?
Cheers
Phil
The bus is every 15 minutes and it's not far from the terminus in Port de Pollensa to the entrance to the valley. There is a good beach in Port de Pollensa.
David