Bird Watching

We have enjoyed bird watching for a lot of years now and love a trip to La Mata when the weathers not to hot. Even sitting on the roof terrace in the evening gives us such good sightings of birds, bats too for that matter. We have been meaning to stop at the bird hide of the main road into Torrevieja for ages now and finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago. We have had sightings of Harriers and Terns in this area with of course the lovely pink flamingos.
One thing that worried us when we did pull in to access the viewing platform was the fact that the gate to the parking area was padlocked. This meant we could not turn around without a great deal of manoeuvring, well done to John for his excellent motoring skills.
However it looks like the poor access will not be the issue that prevents us from returning. A few days ago when we drove along that particular road we saw a “bird” of a different kind has taken occupation of the area, a dama de noche who does not restrict her activities to the night time but can be seen sitting under a brightly coloured parasol by the entrance to the hide. Eager clients, with less driving ability, or other things on their minds, do not seemed worried by having to back their cars out onto the main road. We wonder if the car park gates have been keep locked in an attempt to dissuade the area being used for the world’s oldest proffession.

The Love birds are here

I woke this morning to hear an unusual bird sound, rather like a budgie, only louder, so i crept on to the solarium to see a small parrot type bird walking along the roof, green with red beak and yellow head, chattering away to itself, it wandered round for several minutes when another one appeared on the ridge tile, they looked at each other and flew off, after checking them out on the internet i identified them as Fischers Love birds common in Central Africa and think they must be escapees or they are way out of their territory. I shall be looking again in the morning to see if they reappear.

La Mata Nature reserve

Extending across the municipal areas of Torrevieja, Los Montesinos and Guardamar del Segura are the La Mata and Torrevieja lagoons, which are still used for salt extraction, as they have been for many decades. Salt water is drawn from the Cabeç de la Sal in Pinoso and left to dry in the sun until the water evaporates. The marshlands here are an important wintering and nesting area for over one hundred different bird species, such as the greater flamingo, the black-necked grebe and various duck varieties. At La Mata there are good walking tracks on a variety of terrain and several hides for studying the nature, Access is well signposted and is gained off the N332 at La Mata and there is an information centre at the back of the car park.

The Goat Sucker

Last evening we went for a walk through the nature reserve at Guardamar, this has been created to hold back the sand dunes that are pushing back from the sea at an alarming rate, this reserve runs for several kilometres to the north of Guardamar as far as the Marina.
We could not believe it when we saw someone with a handfull of wild lillies that they had picked from the reserve, - there is still much ignorance about conservation of the flora and fauna.

The highlight of the evening was when we spotted a hawkshape bird diving and flitting, in the moonlight above the dunes , it was the nocturnal, red neck nightjar searching for moths and other insects, they can normally be seen at dawn and dusk. Back in the middle ages these birds were called Goat Suckers as they were believed to come down and suck the milk from the teats of goats.