Mallorca ............Part 4

Besides the previous sites we made various visits to other areas during our stay. Formentor is a real tourist destination and the very attractive beach is a magnet for sun worshippers. However by getting there at  about 8.00am it is quiet so whilst I left Gill reading a book in the sun I headed for the local sewage treatment works set in the pines only a couple of hundred metres away. It is a small area which has produced interesting species in the past. My target this time were Crossbills...Balearic Crossbills! Crossbills tend to be attracted by water as they drink a lot due to their diet of pine seeds. The trees were tall, the sun was bright and very few birds were about, apart from a female Mallard and one youngster.

Mallard and youngster of a few days.

Then, the 'chip chip' calls I was waiting for and a family group appeared but alas they never came down to the water to drink in 40 minutes! They stayed high up in the trees making photography challenging, to say the least. I achieved very little but here are a few shots of the younsters being fed....in silhouette!

Juvenile male Crossbill (balearic)

Adult Crossbill

Juvenile Crossbill

Further along the steep, winding road from Formentor is a well known migration hot spot...Casa Velles. However, changes had been made since our previous visits and all the fig and olive trees had been replaced by vines. The only birds we saw were Red Legged Partidges...

Red Legged Partridge

One day we drove South to Porto Colum looking for Balearic Warblers, Pallid Swifts and Thekla Larks. It is a splendid area of garrigue but after a search we only ended up with Thekla Larks which were an easy target in the car parking area!

On a trip up the Tramuntana mountain range to Lluc we found more Flycatchers, Warblers and Tits...nothing unusual but a very pleasant spot in the moutains. 

Blackcap

Firecrest...balearica

Blue Tit...balearica

Pied Flycatcher...(f)


...and a VERY distant Black Vulture!

..and later in flight (highly cropped!)


Throughout our stay Yellow Legged Gulls were common

but Audouins Gulls were most often seen on the beach at Puerto Pollensa...

Difficult to appreciate these are still one of the rarest gulls in the world...but now increasing in the Med.

Well, that's it for another year...all we have now are memories and a few photos as reminders...

....the 'hoop hoop hoop' calls of the Hoopoes

....Greenfinches ...they look brighter than our own but I am told it is due to the Mediterranean light!

...the constant 'zit-zit' call of the Zitting Cisticolas

..but the one bird that will always remain in my holiday memory bank...the vivid BEE-EATER...what a bird!!

The End