Last autumn me and my mom started thinking of going abroad for some birding, and after some consideration we decided on Mallorca. This because the number of species would not be overwhelmingly large, most bird families would be known to us, but there would still be plenty of new species for us to see, amongst them some birds I've wanted to see for a long time. Anyway, we got two other birders to join us, and planned the trip by reading some old trip reports by other people and trying to get to grips with the birds we would see. As it turned out Mallorca is an excellent place to start "foreign birding", most species were easy to find and recognise. We totalled 100 species, which we were very happy with, especially since none of us had ever been to Mallorca, and only one of us had ever done any serious birding abroad.
So, on 18 April we left Sweden and flew to Mallorca via Frankfurt. We landed at around 18.15 at the airport in Palma, and went to get our car at Hertz. There we also spotted our first birds in Mallorca, some House Sparrows outside the airport. These were very common over the island. We turned north towards Port de Pollença, where we would stay, and along the way we saw some Kestrels and a group of Cattle Egrets in a field.
We had chosen to stay at Hotel Romantic, which lay just by the beach, and excellent choice! The first thing we had when we got out of the car in front of the hotel was an Audouin's Gull just above our heads... nice!
Checked in and checked out the rooms which were small but nice, and with balconies overlooking a backyard and in the distance the mountains. We had asked for a sea view (and we could see the sea if we looked to the right), but actually this turned out to be much better, since the bushes hid some nice birds and (as we found out later) there was a small wetland area, La Gola, in the direction we looked at. House Sparrows were of course the most common, but we had a nice pair of Sardinian Warblers feeding on the ground below, as well as a few Serins and Blackbirds. A Fan-tailed Warbler and a Cetti's Warbler were heard singing and Yellow-legged Gulls flew past. Walked of to a restaurant which turned out to be a bit overpriced and with a terrible sound level, one could not hear oneself think in there because of the noise! We decided to choose some quieter places for the other days...
Got back to the hotel at around 22:00, and got another nice surprise as a Scops Owl started calling outside our rooms... a nice bird to fall asleep to!
Here's a little photo of the view from the balcony. I'll post some more pics in the next post, and the rest of the report! Next up, our first visit to s'Albufera wetland reserve.
I stayed at the Hotel Romantic on a birding trip about 10 years ago---excellent place, the food was plentiful and the location ideal with the Bocca just up the road.
I look forward to the rest of your report.
Ditto - look forward to next installation, always love reading Mallorca trip reports