My wife and I had been wishing to visit the Canaries for sometime. The chance came with the offer of a good package to stay at the Iberostar Papagayo, Playa Blanca, Lanzarote. The trip was to pick up on the mega birds, see the sights and chill out. We hired a car for one week which was when basically all our birding was done. We were successful in seeing our target birds, we had been particularly wishful of seeing Houbara Bustard as we had seen it's Israeli counterpart before the split. In addition we wished to see Cream-coloured Courser as our only pevious sighting had been a distant bird in Israel.
We visited all the usual sites and did some additional exploring. It is not my intention to go into a detailed daily travelogue of the places visited and the birds seen. The excellent details and directions contained in the trip report by Wolfbirder for May 2010 were followed and were found to be spot on. Well done Wolfie for that excellent report and I would reccomend it to any wishing to visit the island. Thus there is little point in my repeating said information.
A total of 41 species was observed which was felt to be quite good for this time of the year. We managed to get some decent still images and some good video.
If anyone would like some detail of the places visited please pm me.
The birds seen were:-
Berthelot's Pipit
Collared Dove
Yellow-legged Gull
Spanish Sparrow
Linnet
Trumpeter Finch
Houbara Bustard
Cream-coloured Courser
Common Coot
Southern Grey Shrike
Pied Wagtail
Kestrel
Lesser Short-toed Lark
Black-winged Stilt
Greater Flamingo
Kentish Plover
Grey Heron
Hoopoe
Rock Dove
Raven
Cattle Egret
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Barbary Falcon
Chiffchaff
Grey Plover
Turnstone
Greenshank
Redshank
Oystercatcher
Common Sandpiper
Black-necked Grebe
Sanderling
Ringed Plover
Sandwich Tern
Bulwers Petrel
Little Ringed Plover
Curlew Sandpiper
Dunlin
Plain Swift
Barbary Partridge
Little Egret
Laughing Dove Heard.
In addition we believe we managed to see Cory's Shearwater but it was really quite dark and could only be sure the bird seen was a Shearwater species. Another possibility was a Purple Heron at the saltpans, but we had no scope with us but feel pretty much that the ID was correct just looking through our bins. Unfortunately we hurried round to the other side of the pans to get a closer look but the bird had disappearred in the 10 minutes taken to get round so cannot be absolutely sure.
In summary a very enjoyable break and grateful that the birds played their part and did not hide.
Nice list.
We did Tenerife in November and did not get half as many.
We managed to see all five Endemics with very brief views of Bolle`s and Laurel Pigeon.
We started to see more at the end of the week as we located some of the sites mentioned in A Bird Watchers Guide to The Canary Islands by Tony Clarke and David Collins.
We also caught two pickpockets at Las Gigantes as they were trying to steal from a German tourist,so anyone visiting beware.
If I ever go again I think it will be in the spring as I found it very hard work finding many birds and there was a distinct lack of butterflies and reptiles.
Its really good (from an individual point of view) to read that one's report has benefitted other birders. So thank you Robert.
Of course reliable info can quickly become dated.
I gather the Great Grey Shrikes on Lanzarote are not infact Southern Grey but Desert Grey Shrikes.
Glad you had such a profitable trip, well jealous of the Bulwer's Petrels and Plain Swift.