A very late afternoon walk along the front from Mezquitilla to Caleta de Velez after completing the Fuente de Piedra report from yesterday turned out to provide some interesting observations. Rock Dove and House Sparrows as Jenny and I made our way westwards and, of course, no shortage of very active and noisy Monk Parakeets still apparently carrying nesting material to their favoured tree.
Once at the harbour entrance bay the water as well up the beach and hitting the retaining wall along about seventy-five per cent of the bay. The little space on the beach was taken up by about fifty Yellow-legged Gulls of varying ages whilst on the rocks a small number of both Mediterranean and Black-headed Gulls were resting. At the far end and on the water the best part of a score of Cormorants.
A returning fishing boat brought with it hundreds of gulls and even a couple of Gannets. However, the most interesting arrival was that of a tightly packed flock of forty Black-winged Stilts. The birds came from the east in a tight group low over the water and entered the bay. They then proceeded to continually wheel around the water as if looking for a place to land and settle but seemed not happy with landing on the small amount of beach presently occupied by the Yellow-legged Gulls. Next they entered the fishing harbour itself only to exit and take another turn around the small bay. These birds were just not happy and even when they reached the exit rather than bear left (eastwards) into the wind and the prospect of a lengthy stretch of beach, around they came once more and when we finally departed after watching this activity for at least fifteen minutes the Black-winged Stilts were still no nearer to making up their minds to where they wanted to head. Very strange indeed and the amount of energy they were using up left you wondering whether they had been wasting their time bothering to feed for the past number of hours.
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