Day 6: On top of de Risco

23rd of July:

Another walk was made this morning, this time we didn't pick the wrong track:) We drove up to the Hermita, on top of the Risco de Famara. These are the cliffs you see when you are in Famara. But you can also get on top of them! From Los Valles you drive to Los Nuevos where you come near the edge of the cliffs. We parked the car near the Hermita and got out of the car to make the walk. First we enjoyed the view from there. The wind was very strong, it blew my sunglasses off... at least 6 bft.

 View to the south

 Famara 

 Tammo in the wind!

And myself

We started our walk, and walked parralel to the cliffs in a northern direction. Our walk would lead us to another viewing point (even prettier than near the hermita).

As we walked we came by a weather station, which amongs others, measures the volcano activity. Almost everywhere on the island, you can see this building, located on top of the cliffs. During our walk we saw Linnets, Turtle Doves, 3 Lesser Short-toed Larks, 1 Hoopoe, Stone Curlew, Spectacled Warbler and near the very nice viewing point we had two Egyptian Vultures soaring below us, patrolling the cliffs. Two migrating Red-rumped Swallows were seen here as well. Mum and sis went back to the car, and my dad and I went on to Haría, where the girls would pick us up again with the car. We descended down to Haría through a very beautiful barranco, probably the greenest on the island.

In the cultivated fields, just south of Haría (and at the end of the barranco) we had our first Fuerteventura Blue Tits, some 20 Canaries, many Spectacled Warblers and a few Turtle Doves. Certainly a spot to come back to some time later!

In Haría we had some drinks and then went home again. We passed Barranco the Chafaris (Tabayesco) and here we found a light morph Eleonora's Falcon hunting! Quick stop with the car delivered us good views.

Here's one of them:

Eleonora's Falcon (Falco eleonorae), light morph 

In the evening we did some seawatching east of Orzola, resulting in 1500+ Cory's Shearwaters, but also 5 Bulwer's Petrels. The observations of the Bulwers were however, very brief and quite distant, as they were  dissappearing behind the waves all the time, making it extremely difficult to follow them. Near the harbour of Orzola we see a dark morph Eleonora's Falcon flying over the sea, probably going to its nesting colony north of Lanzarote. Furthermore we see a Little Egret and two Redshanks.