Christine's walking & birds blog

How dreary it's been today! Lacking even the drama of yesterday with its high winds, bursts of hail, and clap of thunder, today has been just grey and wet and dull. So I carried on looking through my holiday snaps - and found some more I'd forgotten.

Before the man at the hotel told me that a hoopoe often came down into the hotel grounds to feed, we had already seen one near the lagoon on our first full day. We'd sat down to rest on a bench in the shade - and a bird flew onto a post on the opposite side of the dead-end road. "Hoopoe!" I whispered, and clicked off a couple of shots before it flew.


There were quite a few ringed plovers at the end of the lagoon, but on the far side were a couple of more delicate-looking plovers; a really cute chick was running about between them like a clockwork toy, but I'm not sure this can be theirs as they're not in full breeding plumage.



The pictures are hugely cropped, but I think they show female and male Kentish plovers.

A kestrel flew in and perched below us on our trip to the capital, Las Palmas.


One more of the scrounging whimbrel - I don't suppose I'll ever get this close to one again.


I read on someone else's blog (can't remember whose) the observation that birds we're used to seeing in Britain as summer visitors are often fairly approachable on their wintering grounds. I would just add to that - especially if you're eating ice-cream!