For those fellow guides that are determined to imitate this fantastic trip I have been doing and offering to my clients for the last two years, after my dear friend Derek Etherton thought of a way to excite a bit of healthy competition between members of the Andalucia Bird Society in every Andalusian province by promoting one day birding outings to try and spot more than 100 different species, I will say the itinerary we followed today was Mouth of the Guadalhorce, Montes de Malaga, Fuente de Piedra Lake, farmlands and El Chorro reservoirs, where I called it a day, as I run out of light on the way back to Malaga city.

Despite the Barn Owl is on my list again today, the first bird of the day this time was the Blackbird as they have already started with their early morning city songs here in the south. The walk around the mouth of the river proved a strong passage of Barn Swallows and House Martins mixed with the local Crag Martins. Our wintering Booted Eagles and Starlings are still around and most of the Cormorants show a fantastic breeding plumage that will soon sport in their northern breeding quarters. The number of Kentish Plovers seems to be higher at the beach and we could also find other interesting birds like Audouin’s and Mediterranean Gulls as well as the common White-headed Ducks and Zitting Cisticolas.

We missed some of the ordinary forest birds at Montes de Malaga but still spotted such interesting birds like Cirl Bunting, Common Crossbill and Short-toed Treecreeper, Siskins are still present and we saw all our tits: Great, Coal, Blue, Crested and Long-tailed.

The population of Greater Flamingos has not increased significantly yet but Black-tailed Godwits are on the move now, it seems as if White Storks will try to nest again in the old chimney and we found the first Yellow Wagtail of the season. There are still many Cranes in the farmlands, the first Lesser Kestrel have already arrived and some water in the Campillos pools hosts nice flocks of Red-crested Pochards.

The Great Crested Grebes are turning into their summer dresses in the reservoirs of El Chorro, and the cliffs around gave us Griffon Vultures, Black Wheatear, Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Doves, Choughs and the wonderful deep hooting of the Eagle Owl.

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Complete list of birds observed: