Playa Guadalmar, Malaga Province.

A productive hour on the beach.

As I drove down towards Torremolinos to pick Jayne up from her hotel I got a call from Andy Paterson to saw that 3x Velvet Scoters (Negrón Especulado / Melanitta fusca) were on the sea off Guadalmar urbanisation.

So once I had Jayne back with me (which was great as she had been missed whilst I was decorating at home) we headed to the beach were I was soon joined by Andy Paterson and we had a walk out along the beach where we had seen a distant flock of Scoters. 

We walked down to the far Churinghito and the scanned using Andy's scope and we soon picked out around 32 male and female Common Scoters (Negrón Común / Melanitta nigra) but none of the reported Velvets.

As Andy continued to scan the main group I scanned the rest of the sea picking up several Great Cormorants (Cormorán Grande / Phalacrocroax carbo), 3x Black-necked Grebes (Zampullín Cullinegro / Podiceps nigricollis), Black-headed (Gaviota Riedora / Larus ridibundus), Mediterranean (Gaviota Cabecinegra / Larus melanocephalus), Lesser Black-backed (Gaviota Sombria / Larus fuscus) and Yellow-legged Gull (Gaviota Patiamarilla / Larus Michahellis), Northern Gannet (Alcatraz Atlántico / Morus bassanus) and then I picked up another three Scoters way around to the East of the other flock and these turned out to be our target Velvet Scoters, all of which looked like female or immature birds.

Once we had got the views we had wanted we walked back towards the car and Andy noticed that all the Gulls in front of us were up it the air and straight away he said there will be a Skua amongst them somewhere. Within seconds I had it and as it flew passed us and sat on the sea for a short period we Identified it as an immature Pomarine Skua (Págalo Pomarino / Stercorarius pomarinus).

In the same area we had Black Redstart (Colirrojo Tizón / Phoenicurus ochruros), Common Chiffchaff (Mosquitero Común / Phylloscopus collybita), Crag Martin (Avión Roquero / Ptyonoprogne rupestris), Robin (Petirrojo Europeo / Erithacus rubecula), Common Stonechat (Tarabilla Común / Saxicola torquata), Sardinian Warbler (Curruca Cabecinegra / Sylvia melanocephala) and Large White (Pieris brassicae), Clouded Yellow (Colias Común / Colias corcea) and Speckled Wood (Pararge aegeria).