Abbey Meadows

Abbey Meadows

Monday 7 November 2011

North East Majorca 15th - 22nd October











The computer packed in a couple of weeks ago but hopefully everything is back to normal now. Just a few pics from the Alcudia area. All the best wildlife sites were within walking distance. Visited the Albufera reserve; an excellent place with thousands of birds, probably the best were Audouin's Gull and Yellow legged Gull, Purple Gallinule (Swamphen), Stone Curlew, Night Heron, Crested Coot, Marsh Harrier, Cetti and Fan tailed Warbler and dozens of Sardinian Warblers. Sardinian Warblers became a feature of the holiday with birds calling from just about every bush no matter where you went. The coastal pines were full of Chiffchaffs and a few Firecrests. Many Kingfishers and Ospreys around. Little Egrets were probably in their hundreds. To the North of the town behind the Aldi supermarket is an excellent area of scrub and wetland, it is viewable from the main road near the roundabout South of the old town. Many species which you can see at Albufera can be found here but there were more Black winged Stilts here and one day there was a White Stork. There was also Greenshank in good numbers and Purple Gallinule and Audouin's Gull and in the scrub there was Serin, Cirl Bunting moustached Warbler and Hoopoes as well as Sardinian Warblers. One of the commonest species on the island appeared to be Stonechat. I saw many new plants and there was still a lot of butterflies around. The commonest was Long tailed Blue, many Swallowtails, Clouded Yellows and Red Admirals plus a few unidentified Fritilaries which wouldn't rest. The one pictured above had me beat but I think it is the Iberian race of Speckled Wood. All of the species seen was without any real effort. I was just walking about and happy to see what I could without running around from one place to the next. I'd like to go back to this area in the Spring.

6 comments:

Kingsdowner said...

Looks a great place, which is now on my to-go list.
I trust you'll be posting a selection of flora in due course?

abbey meadows said...

Hi K
It is an easy place to wander about and look for things. I've stored lots of photos of plants for future identification and hopefully post some of these.

Anonymous said...

nice overview. the bird list sounds a lot like my trips to Santa Pola/Guardamar on the mainland over the last few years. Your comment on the Sardinian warblers certainly sounds familiar! Singing from absolutely everywhere, especially in Spring.

Martin said...

Hi
your picture of a butterfly is the European 'form' of the Speckled Wood. Much more orange than ours. However, there are no Fritillaries recorded from the Balearic Islands.
Regards

Martin said...

Hi

I don't know why I wrote that. There are two Fritillaries on Mallorca (I've only seen the first): Cardinal (Argynnis pandora) and Queen of Spain (Issoria lathonia). Apologies. Martin

Martin said...

Hi
I don't know why I wrote that. There are two species of Fritillary recorded from Mallorca: the Cardinal (Argynnis pandora) and Queen of Spain (Issoria lathonia). Apologies!