I'm planning on doing a morning's proper birding tomorrow and in the meantime just been keeping my eyes open on various family trips. Yesterday we visited Maspalomas sand dunes and nature reserve for a beach day and today we visited Palmitos Park. We spend the afternoons at the Hotel pool and Beach.
There's a wildfire in the Pine forests in the centre of the island but I'm keeping my fingers crossed I can get up there tomorrow to try and twitch the Gran Canaria Blue Chaffinch (arguably Europe's rarest breeding bird species with only 130+ pairs). The helicopters are going back and forth over the hotel trying to control it so hopefully it will be under control. Seems like a European summer holiday isn't complete nowadays without wildfires and evacuations (they've been evacuating some mountain villages about 12 miles from here).
Canary Island Chiffchaff
Spoonbill at the Sand Dunes nature reserve. Quite a good selection of waterbirds there seen from the footpath while walking past. Ebird list
HEREGran Canaria Giant Lizard (three photos above). Also had this Lizard (below) which was well marked- not sure if just a young Giant Lizard or something else
A couple of Dragonflies to identify. Found this link
here- could be The Epaulet Skimmer (above) and Red-veined Dropwing (below).
Maybe a Scarlet Darter. Also had a male Emperor.
Charca de Maspalomas sand dunes and lagoon nature reserve (above and below)
The Orchid garden at Palmitos Park was one of the highlights
A couple of photos from Palmitos Park- one of the most impressive zoos I've been too, set at the top of a canyon and constructed on a terraced cliff face with an excellent collection of animals and birds and some fantastic sub-tropical and desert planting too (above and below)
The family walking along Charca de Maspalomas- a nice little sneaky birding spot on the tourist track
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