Christine's walking & birds blog

Greger was restless and suggested a week on Gran Canaria - so we went back to Maspalomas. A walk along the esplanade brought the usual sanderlings, ringed plovers, grey plovers, and whimbrels on the rocks below - plus, by the wall where people sit and eat ice-cream, the whimbrel that thinks it's a pigeon.


Yellow-legged gulls were also present.


It's always exciting to reach the Charca - a small lagoon with a backdrop of sand dunes - even if all you can see are greenshanks and common sandpipers. But in fact, there were a couple of surprises. A hunched shape low down in a dead tree turned out to be a juvenile night heron; on the approach of a grey heron, it crept further back into the shadows.


Later it ventured down into the water to do some fishing of its own.


Now it was Greger's turn: "What's that?" he said, pointing into the trees above the reed-bed. At first I could make nothing out against the tangle of tawny undergrowth and background of sand. Then I realised there was a fairly tawny bird there - a purple heron!




On one occasion, we walked rather fast past the lagoon, and I casually remarked that there were more little egrets present today. It was only on our way back that I looked more carefully at the "egrets" and realised that five or six spoonbills had flown in; I looked even more carefully at the remaining egrets, and noted two with yellow bills rather than black. I think these are cattle egrets.


Among the yellow-legged gulls loafing on the shore of the lagoon was a smaller gull with a rather elegant profile and apparently grey legs.






Monarch butterflies were entrancing with their powerful, gliding flight; and eventually one stopped to nectar on bougainvillea.


The grounds of the hotel lacked the open lawns of the one we stayed in last time, but held quite a variety of trees, including great palms that soared into the sky and gave a wild feel to the man-made. We laughed quite a lot when we saw this sign - you have to laugh, otherwise you'd cry. Every morning, well before breakfast, you could guarantee that every sunbed in a decent patch of sun was draped with a towel.


However, we always managed to find two sun-beds without resorting to unseemly "bagging" and used them in the mornings for an hour of sunbathing followed by a swim in a very cold pool (wondering why it was always empty while a second pool was jam-packed with people); then we'd forego lunch and take a walk in the afternoons. On departure day we had time for a last swim; being early, we used the pool that was always busy and where all the frantic exercise classes were held - and discovered that it was heated. Der.

Other birds seen: kestrel, waxbill, Berthelot's pipit, canary, swift, Sardinian warbler, goldfinch, grey wagtail, moorhen, blackbird, chiffchaff (CI), and blue tit (CI).