Catalonia, Spain - Part 1 Birding at the Aiguamolls de l'Emporda

We returned to a campsite that we know next door to the Aiguamolls nature reserve but we couldn't get our usual pitch next to one of the two lakes within the site. So we were stuck out in what I called a 'dusty parking lot' area which wasn't the nicest of places. We did get to test out our new shade cloth which fits onto the edge of the awning, and it was easy to put on/take off, and really helped shade our pitch. Of course it would have helped if we had parked the other way round to start with..... 😁 Though of course the sun moves around during the day so there is always going to be a time when the sun comes under the awning, so the new shade cloth was a really worthwhile buy.

Later on in our travels we noticed people using patterned shade cloths pegged onto the awning to cover the side bits, and we came across them in the market at Lloret, so invested in one of them too! They are just like a sheet which takes up no room in the van and ours has a cicada printed on it. So in future there will be no more having to move our chairs around during the day trying to find shady spots!

Our first afternoon we visited what we call the 'Sewage Works' part of the reserve. This is because it's located right beside a sewage works! No, it's not smelly. There are several lagoons, two hides and one viewing platform.

The smallest lagoon was full of water but I think it is probably fed from the filtered water from the sewage works. The other lagoon was very dried out with only water in the centre, quite a way from the hide (picture below showing the view of dry ground that is normally under water.) This lagoon had far more interesting birds than the full pool.

The birds were distant in the wet area. These birds below are Whimbrels (Numenius phaeopus) - not a species we see very often. They would have been on their way back from their breeding grounds in northern and arctic regions to their overwintering grounds on coastal areas around Africa, South Asia and Australasia.

These are Keith's bird photos and he ran this image through a sharpening app so was able to crop much tighter, but I don't care for the overly sharpened look.

Below shows a Black Winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus) on the left, a Whimbrel top right and a Greenshank (Tringa nebularia) wading through the water below it.  There was also a Kentish Plover wandering around but the photo of it wasn't very good.

There were very few butterflies around as the ground was still dry and there were very few flowers. However, amazingly we came across this Large Conehead Cricket (Ruspolia nitidula) and the only other one we have ever seen was in this exact place a few years back! It doesn't seem to have antennae - what looks like orange antennae I think is vegetation behind that looks almost exactly like it is coming from the cricket!! I did have difficulty getting my camera to focus properly so I somehow didn't manage to get the whole body in the image, but this is a lot better than nothing.

EDIT: Thanks to Nature Nyrd I have discovered that it is in fact a Mediterranean Slant-faced Grasshopper (Acrida ungarica) also known as Cone-headed Grasshopper, so that explains my confusion. I knew there was Conehead in its name! And those ARE its antennae! See her comment below.

Another view of the half dry lagoon from the other hide:

On our way back to the Moho we were accompanied by Bee-eaters (Merops apiaster) flying around and stopping to perch here and there. K was able to get some fabulous images of them as we crept closer and closer on the footpath.

They are one of my favourite birds and seem very exotic! You can click on the above images of the birds to view larger and sharper.

The next day we went to the main reserve and I will put this in another post. I haven't forgotten the Croatia write up, I will get back to that this winter.