Honeyguide Wildlife Blog

Saturday 14 March – El Fondo Natural Park Jillian left for home this morning, partly as El Fondo is a place she visits from home and on account of wider coronavirus developments. All cafes and restaurants were shut today and until further notice, a reaction to growing fears about the spread of Covid-19.
We had an early start, eight o'clock, for a longer journey today, south on the motorway past Alicante and the skyscrapers of Benidorm. Part of El Fondo that previous Honeyguide groups had visited was not open, a coronavirus casualty, so the first stop was to another new wetland called Paratje Natural Municipal del Clot de Galvany, adjacent to a typical coastal collection of apartments and houses. Winter rains meant a rich mix of ruderal plants, including dark-centred tolpis, Fagonia cretica, joint pine and bright patches of purple vipers bugloss. The first hide overlooked a lagoon that seemed to be under restoration, though it still had three cattle egrets and half a dozen wintering…

Friday 13 March - Pego Marsh and Gandia A slightly earlier (8:45) start to meet members of Pau's ringing group, Pit Roig, at Pego Marsh, as they'd set up the mist net before dawn. Driving there through dry paddy fields there were several glossy ibises with the expected little egrets, plus Audouin's gulls standing on a dry field. Juan from Pit Roig had four birds in bags, and Brian, a qualified 'C' ringer, was invited to 'process' them: check rings, measure and weigh. He started with two re-traps, a chiffchaff, released by Dawn, and a Cetti's warbler. The next bird was a new one for Brian: a female bluethroat. Another grade A bird followed: moustached warbler, a generally resident species with an important population added to by wintering birds from the Camargue. There was also a moustached warbler singing, like a slow, relaxed sedge warbler. A pale phase booted eagle flew over, a marsh harrier drifted by and the zip zip zip sound of a fan-tailed warbler …

Thursday 12 March – Mediterranean garden and Calpe
We had a relaxed departure as our first destination wasn't open until 10 o'clock. The L'Albarda garden, not far from Dénia, is a rich man's project: an Italianate garden that failed when originally planted but now developed with Mediterranean species adapted to survive in the local climate. Our guide, Àngel, showed us around and tolerated the wildlife digressions with patience. These started as soon as we arrived with singing firecrest, blackcap and chiffchaff and displaying serins. The clipped hedges of myrtle, trained wisteria and bougainvillea and the other features were elegant, though there was more formal garden I'd prefer to see. However Àngel's assertion of the wildlife-friendly, pesticide-free management was fair. Highlights included a geranium argus around a pot of pelargoniums, Cleopatra butterflies and Iberian water frog, though these were topped by the horseshoe whip-snake that slithered through a s…

Wednesday 11 March - butterfly reserve and micro-reserves for flora We had a generous breakfast at the hotel at 8am and Pau joined us at nine o'clock to load up picnics, including natty little Casa Babel backpacks, and help to release the minibus from the hotel's parking compound a short distance away.
We drove to the new butterfly reserve that Pau has been instrumental in setting up, a partnership between butterfly conservation NGO Zerynthia and Gandía Council. The person from the council who was supposed to meet us didn't turn up, but it didn't matter very much. Pau’s vehicle was allowed in and the rest of us walked up the road alongside botanically rich hillsides. Those hillsides had been hit by serious fires in August 2018, and the charred remains of pines and of damaged buildings were evidence of that, though natural regeneration was in full swing. Bright blue beautiful flax and aphyllantes (sometimes called blue grass-lily) mixed with white sage-leaved cistus, spl…

Tuesday 10 March - arrival in Valencia. It was a routine flight from Gatwick, arriving in Valencia at the same time as Karin and Brennan arrived from Germany. Meeting as the airport were local leader Pau and Jillian, who had travelled from her part of Spain and was picked up by Pau a little earlier. Most of us found our way out of the car park in our Europcar minibus then followed Pau's vehicle, with the remainder of the group, south-east towards Valencia's marshes. The paddy fields were poor for birds: draining ahead of rice being planted had started early. Nonetheless, Brian estimated we passed about 300 little egrets, mostly standing around in dry fields.
We parked at the Albufera's visitor centre and climbed the stairs to the elevated viewing area. Lakes with islands held black-winged stilts and shelducks. Turning through 90 degrees, out on the open water were red-crested pochards and Mediterranean gulls mingling with black-headed gulls.
We descended and followed the rou…

Estonia is already a good country for seeing mammals, often so tricky in Europe. The usual Honeyguide holiday in Estonia includes our partner NaTourEst’s bear hide, where as well as brown bears there are usually racoon dogs and red squirrels.
Estonia also has two unusual species of mammal, ringed seals and flying squirrels. Could it be good idea to adapt our itinerary to try to see then on a Honeyguide holiday? Honeyguide’s Chris Durdin asked NaTourEst’s Peep Rooks about these mammals.

Ringed seals are generally a species of the High Arctic and Chris suggested that Estonian ringed seals would be some of the most southerly in Europe.

Peep says: “Yes, the ringed seals in Estonian waters are the most southern population in the world. They ‘got stuck’ in the Baltic Sea after the last ice age, when the land started to rise. We integrate the ringed seals usually to our itineraries as a ’day-tour’, which means we drive to the port – 20 minutes from Matsalu NP – then the ferry crosses for 1h15 …