Esteppes de Yecla & Coral-Rubio

For Tuesday 10th August we had planned to go to both Esteppes de Yecla and then onward to Corral-Rubio and some of the farmland around in search of the Great Bustard. We left very early as we knew that the temperatures would be in the 30's by early afternoon and so we were birding by 8am.

Opposite the road leading into the 'Esteppes' there is a camino that took is into farmland with some uncultivated areas. We had been very lucky here before with a juvenile Black-eared Wheatear and again we scored well. This time it was a Tawny Pipit and captured on camera by Bryan which confirmed the identification. Ian, a birder on holiday, saw it and drew our attention to it. He claimed it as a first for him and so did I. Adult and juvenile Woodchat Shrikes flew and so did Crested, Thekla and Greater Short-toed Larks.

We moved on quickly as we wanted Ian to get two more firsts with both Black-bellied and Pintail Sandgrouse. We could hear them in flight and then three possible ones were seen flying in the distance. Eventually after much searching of both ground and skies we saw both species with nine Pintail flying around in good view. Two were later seen on the ground feeding so that we could see the neck and head markings. Later we saw the other variety which showed clearly their black bellies. We had to work for these, but our efforts paid off very well.

We noticed an almost total absence of Lesser Kestrels and not one was to be seen at the nesting site or even foraging nearby. We did see Calandra Larks, but not in high numbers as we had seen before. What is going on? Hoopoes were everywhere and this is the first time that we had seen so many.

When approaching the Caudette end of the valley we saw both adult and juvenile Black-eared Wheatears and we also had distant views of Black Wheatears. It is always a joy to see Little Owls and the tally stands for them at five individuals.

Moving onto Corral-Rubio which still had water where there was a good collection of waders which included Lapwing, Redshank, Wood Sandpiper and Kentish Plovers. There were thirty Red-crested Pochard, but all we had time for was a quick scan before heading off in our search for Great Bustards. We had no luck! This was Bryan's first ever abortive visit to find the GB's. His hundred percent record is no more and his reputation is in tatters!

On a more positive note three firsts for Ian, one for me and we will look forward to spending more time up there examining closely what is in the water. We did locate one Black-bellied Sandgrouse feeding on a scuffled field. It is such an excellent and vast area that we are considering staying for a night or two. That will be once we have had a substantial amount of rain.