Fuerteventura .. Feb 29th ~ Mar 3rd - '24

Thursday, 7 March 2024

 I got a good flight & car deal with British Airways, then an apartment with Booking.com which all came to £280 could of even had a cheaper deal with a hotel further from my main location saving £60 but location and restaurants etc was worth the extra staying in Villaverde ..

The plan was to stay mainly in the northern part around Tindaya and photograph the desert species which I did have success at up to a point, and this was hindered by being overcast in the mornings & evenings ..

Actually finding the birds, knowing they are in the area was hard enough and then needing them close to the tracks when the light was good proved even more difficult ..

Area's that I tried were ..

Tindaya, morning & evening everyday ..

Barranco de la Muley, Salinas del Carmen, Barranco Puerto de los Molinos, Embalse de los Molinos, Barranco Esquinzo, Corralejo PNat ..

Fuerteventura Stonechat was easy at Barranco Puerto de los Molinos with a pair next to the car park with a convenient  restaurant here as well ..

From here instead of going back on the main road I suggest taking the track which goes up literally beside the restaurant and eventually crosses Tindaya, the track runs through stepped areas that are worked either side of the track with at least 4+ more pairs of Chats ..




Only found two Stone Curlews which were by the main crossroad near Tindaya .. 


Small flocks of Mediterranean Short-toed Lark were at most of the sites I visited .. 



 Great Grey Shrike (koenigi) were not bothered by the car at all, to close to focus on at times just couldn't get a bird in a nice setting..

  




Houbara Bustard were easiest near the crossroad as per Gosney drive through the village on the main road which leads out towards the crossroad, a male & two females which were seen everyday both morning & evening visits, but never as a trio, two females together and the male alone ..
Others were seen 13 in total but not nice, close steady viewing as around the lead up to the crossroad ..



Cream-coloured Courser, I found 5 birds about 1km along the track at the crossroads which leads to Los Molinos, 3 just run and didn't stop running and two were so close I didn't even see them, eventually they moved to a focusing distance for the camera, defiantly not often you can say that ..



The last evening was beautiful light and I drove all the main tracks on Tindaya finding nothing close so drove tracks out west towards the coast but still no luck ..

Really enjoyable long weekend and one I would easily do again, cheap and a good calendar filler in between trips ..  

 










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