A week in Mallorca spent walking and birding! What a great island.
We landed in torrential rain, gale force winds, thunder and lightning! Woo hoo round of applause for the pilot of Air Berlin!
We stopped in an apartment in Puerto Pollensa, good place to base yourself.
S'Albufera Natural Park - We had 2 days here over our stay.
Turns out we had left the bird id book back in Lanjaron so had no idea what we were seeing unless someone was able to tell us or we just had to wait until we got home.
What a set up this is, a huge area of wetland with hides dotted about so you can watch the comings and goings of the bird life.
To name a few of the birds we saw:- male and female Marsh Harriers, Osprey, Herons, Hoopoe, Egrets, Lapwings, Snipe, Black-Winged stilts, Sandpipers, Zitting Cisticola, Stonechats thats just nameing a few!
We thought we had seen a Purple Swamp Hen, when we got home, looked in the book, turns out it was a Moorhen! Im sure moorhens did not look like that when I saw them on the canals in the UK when I was younger.
On our 2nd trip there we took a wrong turn and ended up walking 4hours around the outskirts of the reserve, by the time we managed to find the hides again all the usual suspects were still there.
Our mountain days included:-
Puig Tomir, great friendly little mountain with fantastic views of Black Vultures all day and many other smaller birds like Black Redstarts and Blue Rockthrush as you go through different habitat.
Massanella, the highest accesable mountain in Mallorca, we set off from the Cuber side (its harder and therefore quieter) and for our efforts we had again great views of Black and Griffon Vultures along with smaller birds like Black Redstarts.
The Cavell Bernat Ridge in the Boquer valley was an extremley hard day and again birding wise it was great, Eleonora's Falcons joined us on this hard day.
Our day off we drove to Formentor (but turned around due to loads of people), then went to Cuber, couldnt park there so ended up at the Gorg Blau lake, not far from Cuber. There we got to see various shapes and sizes of seaguls, Cormoants, Red Kite and again Vultures.
Fantastic little island with a lot to offer people who do not just want to sit on the beach all day.
Recommend Air Berlin
Recommend the Codfather
Recommend Ca'n Pacienci for very good although expensive food
Be aware Sundays are ridiculously busy, you need to get up very early as parking is a big problem in most of the areas you want to visit.
The mountain photos.
My bird photos.
Be aware too that on Saturdays - every Saturday - the local motobikers (there are many!) take great delight in roaring through the mountain roads. Not only is it very dangerous - they treat it like a race track that only they have the right to and without any Guardia Civil intervention - but it spoils the tranquility of the place. Of course, like in the UK, many of the bikers are cops/guardia civil so blind eyes and all that! It is so beautiful and so peaceful - for six days a week. Note also that in the better birding times Cuber etc are quiet, even on Saturdays, as it falls out side of the normal "giri" (tourist) time.....Good luck if you are going. It is a great place with lots of birds to see!!!!!!!! At Cuber look out for the Spectacled Warblers....
SBM
Yes that is very true but I have to say its not just Saturdays its also Sundays, we were over taken by about 8 bikes on our way to Cuber, came round a corner to find a motorbike and rider in the road!!! Lesson learnt I doubt it. Sundays was not the guiris, it was the Spanish who were gathering for family bbqs etc as we were there end of season.