Scoter at La Marina

Wednesday 8th December came with little wind and clear blue skies after a period of intermittent rain and sun and so we were hoping for a good few hours birding anywhere between Gran Alicante and San Felipe Neri. I met Bryan Thomas as the sun rose around 8am. The temperature being no more than 9 degrees. He had heard reports of a brightly coloured bird flying with the egrets at Clot de Galvany. We had already decided that it could be a painted pigeon. And so it was. However we discovered that the scrapes had been cleared of vegetation and that the main area of water had been also been cleared thus allowing good views of it and any birds there. Snipe, Little Grebe, Teal, Mallard and Shoveler were obvious with White Wagtails, Chiffs and Robins all around. Hoopoes perched and so did a Southern Grey Shrike.

After a few minutes we were in our way along the coast road towards Santa Pola spending some time looking for Whimbrel with out seeing any. Audouin's. Slender- bills and Yellow-legged Gulls were easily seen. Also we saw a Black Wheatear and Black Redstarts were flying about.

We moved on and traveled south on N332 to one of our usual stops at the lagoons just before the speed camera. The usual waterfowl and Flamingos were there, but nothing of great interest. We stopped at the Salt Tower where two Sandwich Terns were flying close by. In the distance were about 50 Spoonbill and then two flew in front of us. Among them were 3 Great White Egrets and a number Grey Herons. Two Ospreys and Marsh Harriers flew to make it a very worthwhile few minutes. We quickly moved on as our target area was in the beach area at La Marina on the seaward side of El Pinet. The water at the scrapes was high and here we had very close views of Dunlin, Redshank, one Ringed Plover, Avocet, but overall it was very quiet there.

Redshank

Dunlin


At the beach we initially had no luck in finding our target bird, a Scoter, that had been reported there. We left knowing that we still had time to go towards El Hondo and there we saw Malcom Palmer of the Costa Blanca Bird Club who said that our target bird was further along the beach from where we had looked and easily seen. We headed back towards the beach seeing on way Green Sandpipers, several Buzzards and then four Booted Eagles, two dark morph and two pale morph, were circling high above us. On a sunny leaf there was Red Admiral butterfly. Kestrels were about and one we had a good look at as we were hoping that it was a Merlin. Malcom had seen one early but for us It was not so.

Red Admiral

Booted Eagle


Back at he beach we searched the water along the length of the beach and then we found a friendly birder with camera and binoculars pointing out to sea. This was a Scoter clearly seen, nearby and preening itself. We spent over an hour watching this bird and Bryan photographing it. His knowledge and the ID through the camera showed that it was a male STEJNEGERS (Siberian) SCOTER. It was a long way from its Baltic range and breeding areas. Apparently it is only the second recorded in Spain, and the only previous observation was in Galicia. It was a first for us both. There is an FB page that provides information on the same sighting. This is by Crónicas Naturales de Torrevieja and their FB address is www.facebook.com/cronicas.naturales.torreiveija. They use the Spanish name of Siberian Aliblanco Scoter, but they do make reference to Stejneger.



A very good image of this species is on Page 35 of The Sibley Guide to Birds (second edition) which makes reference to the males have black flanks and not brown and with a slightly differing bill shape and pattern. There are records of it being seen a few times in far western Alaska.

All of this maybe very important, but the point for me that this was a very clear sighting of a lovely bird and it capped our day out together splendidly.

All photographs copyright Bryan Thomas 2016