Trip reports

Group trip to Mallorca, led by Bernard Morris. 10th to 17th May

Saturday, 10 May 2008

In the end there were nineteen of us and a contact at Naturetrek who unsuccessfully bid for the holiday said we must be mad. What he did not know was that we had four drivers, three expert birders (if you include me as one which is doubtful). Three holiday leaders (note Dave and Anne played an absolute blinder all week) and a bunch of true friends.

Dave, Anne and I chose to offer a different kind of holiday. We rented three luxury villas, all within a stones throw of each other. These are the type of houses footballers wives used to go to before everyone started to earn even more money. Food to be a mixture of home cooking and eating out. We stayed on the coast just outside Puerto de Pollensa.

The weather was awful! Typically British, lots of rain. By day three we were a day behind on the itinerary. It seemed that easterlies had been prevailing for a long time. Some evidence might have been a paucity of bird species, an apparent Siberian Stonechat on territory and a few Red Footed Falcons.

As the week progressed we got better at dodging the wet bits and the birding started to pick up. Eleonara's Falcon was seen almost daily and especially at S'Albufera. Good views were had of Black Vulture and fishing Osprey at Cuber in The Tramuntana Mountains. Balearic Warbler was seen well in Bocquer Valley and at Porto Colom. Thekla Lark, normally a montane bird, but not on this island, was seen well at Salinas de Levante and Porto Colom.
I thought we had a particularly delightful couple of hours in the South West corner of S'Albufera. Gut feeling told me this "off the track" spot might be worthwhile. We had good views of Squacco Heron and
a summer plumaged Little Stint but White Headed Duck was beyond expectations.
Marbled Teal was at the Sewage Works (note never miss a chance to go to sewage works!). Stone Curlews were everywhere.

Yes Mallorca in most ways holds absolutely nothing for me and my travelling partners. However it is a couple of flying hours due south and in most seasons has a lot of bird interest. I have mentioned all the "hot spots" above. The food is not as good as in UK and do take your own veg with you! The main thing is go with good friends.

For the record, we saw and heard 108 species of bird.