Great weekend

This was a great weekend for me. I did two trips, one to a pelagic on Tarragona and one to Remolar-Filipines.
On saturday, my mum and me took the 7:33 am train and traveled to Tarragona. Once there, we took the boat and we started to sail. on the harbour we saw a Shag, a quite unusual species. We continued and reached the end of the harbour, there, the guides started throwing the fish they had brought to attract birds. The first Audouin and Mediterranean Gulls started following us. After some time, the first Shearwaters and Common Terns joined the Gulls. We continued sailing until someone shouted "Reed Warbler". I found it a bit strange as we were some miles to the nearest coast. I asked where it was, looking at some point of the sea until someone told me that I should look at the ships antennae. There was a very tired Reed Warbler indeed. Someone managed to capture it after it had been sitting a while on a man's shoulder. They put it in a bag and released it once we were at land.
I asked my mother for the camera to make some pictures of the gulls. When I had just returned it to her, observing a Shearwater, a guide localised two Puffins,  a scarce species in the Mediterranean and a lifer to me.
After some time, we had seen a lot of species, including some Storm Petrels, Cory's Shearwater, a Great Skua and a couple of Parasitic Skuas but the main attraction of this trip, the Pomarine Skua hadn't shown yet. I asked my mum for the camera again and went down to the inferior level to make some shots of the Shearwaters an then finally the Pomarine Skuas appeared. Three at the same time were following the boat, and we could localise another one. I made a lot of shots of this really beautiful birds. They followed us almost until we reached the harbour where they was another Shag.


On sunday, I went to the Remolar Filipines reserve. I took my mum's camera, who wasn't coming with us. As I was walking to the hides I heard a very familiar and nice noise, Bee-eaters. At the hides there wasn't much going on except for some Collared Pratincoles, some Litlle Terns and some Little Grebes who had their babies. There were also Squacco Heron, Hoopoe, Purple Gallinule and some others.
After the hides we went to the beach, but there were only some Terns.

 Common Tern

 Audouin's Gull

 Balearic Shearwater

 Pomarine Skua

 Yellow Wagtail

 Black Winged Stilt

 Little Grebe

Delta del Llobregat 07/05/2011

Yesterday I was in Cal Tet again, looking for the Smew that had been seen this week.
I asked at the information point but they told me the bird hadn't been observed this day. I went to the Cal Tet hide and I mounted my scope. There weren't so many birds as last week but it still was nice. There was a Great Crested Grebe only a few meters from the hide, a Gull-Billed Tern, some Geese and even a Purple Heron flew past.
After some time observing and taking photos of the swallows I decided to go to the beach observation tower. On the way, you go paralel to the rivermouth. As I was walking there, I saw two birds flying very close to me, they were terns. I looked with my binoculars and I could ID them as Black Terns, a lifer. I climbed up to the tower and started looking. There were some waders, like Dunlins, Grey Plovers or Oystercatchers and some Ducks.

 Barn Swallow

 Black Tern

 Coot

Great Crested Grebe

Delta del Llobregat 30/04/2011

Yesterday I was at Cal Tet.
I went looking for the Laughing Dove which had been seen.
When I arived, I looked at the place where it had been seen, but I din't see it. I continued. I asked at the information center for what I could see, and I was told that there were some flooded meadows, where I could see waders.
Once there, I started to look. I saw lots of Squacco Herons and Cattle Egrets. I also saw a Purple Heron. I continued looking and I saw some waders like Redshank, Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, Ruff, and much others.
I continued and arrived at the Cal Tet hide, where I spent the rest of the afternoon. There were a lot of species, including some very nice ones, like Spoonbill, Temminck Stint, Sand Martins, Purple Gallinule, Oystercatcher...After some time I noticed the first Whiskered Terns of the year. A Great Crested Grebe showed very well too. While observing a pair of Whiskered Terns, I noticed a strange Tern. I looked and found it very dark for Whiskered. It was a White Winged Tern, a lifer, I was very surprised by this, because I didn't expect it here. It's a rare bird in Spain.
Finally I also saw a very nice male Garganey.

     Great Crested Grebe

                                                                        Oystercatcher

                                                                            Sand Martin

                                                                           Spoonbills

                                                                   Squacco Heron

                                                                  White Winged Tern