El Hondo Visitor Center

Today I decided to take my bike and cycle out to El Hondo again. Only, not the North Gate like last time. I wanted to visit the Visitor Center in order to see two specialist birds there: crested coots and collared pratincoles. 

Crested coots are an incredibly rare bird in Europe- only 50 pairs or so hang on in southern Spain, although it is widespread in Africa. El Hondo was the site of a reintroduction of these, and they have become favourite targets for photography at the reserve. 

My other target was collared pratincoles- a popular bird for wish lists. These do often occur near El Hondo, but are nearly impossible to see as far as I understand. However now, during migration, a massive amount of them has built up on the reserve, peaking at over 60 in the start of April. The previous day, the count had fallen to 20, and I was hoping to see them before they moved on

The Visitor Center is even farther than the North Gate, but I covered the distance rather quickly on my bike. In the lake by the visitor center a sizeable amount of glossy ibis were feeding in full view. I had gotten used to these being shy cowards, but these seemed completely oblivious to my presence. A flock of black-tailed godwit wheeled overhead before landing somewhere in the reeds.

I then visited some other ponds, and at one of them I noted a crested coot quite close to the hide, providing for excellent views and images. The red knobs on its head were clearly visible, and it was accompanied by marbled ducks, another very rare bird and another specialty of the reserve. 

As I backtracked to look for pratincoles, I heard the unmistakeable 'cuc-oo' calling of a male common cuckoo. Since 2018, I have not succeeded in getting good photographs of these birds because the cuckoos in the UK are incredibly shy and secretive. I carefully approached the sound, and sure enough, quickly located the cuckoo, sitting near the top of a bush jutting out from the reeds. Some of the photographs I took finally put my desire to see it so much to rest.

After this surprise, I headed out to another lagoon in the general area where I expected the pratincoles to be. And, indeed, they were right there- sitting packed on a small island in the lagoon, close to the hide. There were around 10 of them. Collared pratincoles are remarkably beautiful birds, resembling oversized swallows but with a much, much nicer colouration. They were close enough for me to get great photos of most of the group, especially of 1-2 of them. I once heard it is very, very difficult to even see them on the ground, so this was a remarkable opportunity. 

Returning to the visitor center, I took more photos of the crested coot, which had not gone anywhere, in order to preserve seeing this rare species in memory. 

As I prepared to head back home, I was distracted by a glossy ibis feeding very close to where I was standing. I expected it to fly off, but it ignored me and continued probing the lake bottom, allowing me to get great images of the bird. 

On the way back as I rode past El Hondo North Gate where last December I was watching the spotted eagles, a short-toed eagle was circling around the entrance, but I didn't photograph it