Gran Canaria

After a long winter in the UK we decided we needed a 'winter sun' break so headed to Gran Canaria for a week, an island not famed for it's wildlife. Gran Canaria although off the African coast is a Spanish Territory so the birds count as European sightings :)

The nature of the holiday mitigated against much birding, but we made the effort to go out for a walk at the start of the holiday and to nip out of the hotel at dawn a couple of mornings running. We found some delighful birds we hadn't seen before, the following 3 posts show some of what we found:

Where else to start but with the Canary? I snapped this bird while on an Island tour - the only cloudy day of the week.















Blue-eyed Glossy Starling:





















The commonest bird of all was the Collared Dove, certainly in inhabited areas, closely followed by the Spanish Sparrow and the Blackbird. Being full blown spring in Gran Canaria the mornings and evenings were full of bird song to the extent that even some of the hardened sun bathers were noticing it.

We got back home to reports of a Great North Diver in the local reservoir... I hope it's still there on Sunday...