A good day out.

Waine & Sue were staying we me at the guesthouse and wanted to see "bustards & sandgrouse" so we got up early and headed inland to Castilla La Mancha and the plains east of Albacete. The road to Corral Rubio as usual produced the goods and 2 hours later we found 49 Great Bustards, 40+ Black bellied & a single Pin tailed Sandgrouse feeding in the agricultural fields right next to the road. Although 1000+ Calandra Larks was incredibly impressive as was Crested & Thekla Larks, Corn Buntings, Rock Sparrows, Meadow Pipits, Linnets, Southern Grey Shrikes, Red legged Partridges and Common Buzzards. The wet areas around the town we saw lots of Eurasian Teal, Shoveler, Mallard, Lapwings, Black winged Stilts, Common Snipe, Little Stint, several Water Pîpits and around Higuela Lagoon we added Shelduck, Coot, an adult female Marsh Harrier and a Merlin (found by Sue). It was now time lunch my usual stop at the San Juan in Petrola produced the usual excellent Bacon & Cheese Bocadillos. After lunch we visited Petrola Lagoon were we saw lots of wildfowl including Red Crested Pochard, Wigeon, Pintail, Gadwall, Common Teal, Shelduck, Shoveler, Mallard and a single Avocet. We slowly made our way back along the tracks finding another 18 Great Bustards, 5 Black bellied Sandgrouse plus a Stock Dove, and as we left for Bonete we found a flock of 100+ Rock Sparrows with a few Corn Buntings. So mid-afternoon we headed back to Oliva and they had mentioned wanting to try and see Balearic Shearwater so with a couple of hours of daylight left I took them to the beach. It was grand in the warm sunshine and the strong winds having lessened making viewing very comfortable indeed. Over an hour we got superb views of at least 100 Balearic Shearwaters plus Great & Arctic Skuas harrying the Audouin's & Black headed Gulls, Gannets, Cormorants and Crag Martins over the chalets behind. Really capped off a great day.