Jardín Botánico Viera y Clavijo & El Puertillo

We had a car for our week in Gran Canaria and this was our first trip away from Maspalomas. Really lovely and extensive gardens in the north of the island with some wilder areas and wildlife.

The Canary Island race of Common Kestrel was common throughout the island and there were a couple here showing very well. They were feeding on insects caught by flying from low perches.

Another obliging bird was this a Little Egret.

And this Grey Wagtail approached so close I had to stop photographing.

The African Blue Tits were less cooperative.

And Canary Island Chiffchaff also challenging.

The Canary Island race of Eurasian Blackbird is not particularly distinctive.

There were plenty of butterflies, with Monarch being most conspicuous.

Just one or two Red Admiral.

A few African Grass Blue.

And finally an Island Darter completed the photos from here.

El Puertillo 

After we decided to head for a late lunch to the little bay where Semipalmated Plover had been showing. Unfortunately we considered with a high tide and the Common Ringed Plover flock was nowhere to be seen.

A lovely spot nonetheless and an excellent lunch. 

A few of the hardier, rock-loving species were around, like Eurasian Whimbrel

And Ruddy Turnstone.

Eastern Black Redstart, Sheringham

Staying on the coast in East Norfolk for a few days and dropped in to see the long staying first winter male Eastern Black Redstart a couple of times. The second day it was feeding around disturbed ground in the Esplanade Gardens and approached really close at times.

Wonder if this distinctive form would be split from Black Redstart.

I also made the pilgrimage to the Black-winged Kite. A long walk in to view a very distant perched bird. Still, only the 3rd or 4th for the UK and a country tick. 

A good supporting cast around, including a small flock of the increasingly scarce Berwick's Swan, a couple each of Tundra Bean and Eurasian White-fronted Geese, and this first winter Iceland Gull. Another species that had become much scarcer in recent years. 

Full list for the four days here.

Gran Canaria Giant Lizard

We really thought we might not see this Gran Canaria endemic. Despite numerous reports saying they'd were common on the island, they failed to show at every suitable site we visited. This may have been due to the relatively cool weather we had most of the time.

Eventually Karen found two on a rocky outcrop near the Cave Houses Museum in Artenara. I only saw, and photographed, the smaller of the two, but was happy to finally tick the species.

Then, with a late afternoon flight on the final day, we decided to head to a likely looking spot not far from Maspalomas, where we'd been staying. It was much warmer when we got to the reservoir at Ayugaures and we had great views of at least four around the area of the dam.

African Collared Dove

Managed just one lifer during a week on Gran Canaria at the beginning of January. The endemic Blue Chaffinch and long staying Greater Yellowlegs both eluded me despite multiple attempts. But I did encounter

I'd seen reports of African Collared Dove on every trip to the Canary Islands but never been convinced of a pure one myself. Pale birds are quite frequent on several of the islands but all the ones I'd seen before had some darker feathering and, when able to check, lacked the diagnostic undertail pattern. 

I had no such queries about this one near the Charca de Maspalomas though. First of all it is uniformly pallid and the primaries, while slightly darker than the coverts, are pale grey and do not contrast much at all.

The undertail coverts are whitish (not grey) and, crucially, the black base to the tail feathers does not extend along the outer edges.

As a comparison, here is what I presume to be a hybrid feeding with some Collared Doves. Although obviously much paler than the other birds, the presence of many darker feathers and clearly contrasting dark primaries mean it is unlikely to be pure African .

There's another debate to be had about the origin of these birds. They occur naturally not very far away on the African mainland, but also have a domesticated form, 'Barbary Dove' (which is sometime given its own classification).