Natural Selection

I wasn’t sure whether there would be enough to say about an excursion to the nearest beach to the port, but I think there was so I hope you agree.

After Jane had sorted a pair of loungers and a parasol at the artificially golden sands of Las Teresitas I wandered in to the nearby village of San Andres to look for some birds. First up was the Canary pictured above. Although wild Canaries don’t only occur in the Canary Islands they are only found in the Macronesian Islands , so basically the Azores and Madeira otherwise.

I wasn’t sure if the local race of African Blue Tit would be present in the area. As it was they were quite conspicuous. When I first saw these birds in Fuerteventura in 2006 they were ‘lumped’ with our common or garden Blue Tits of Europe. They are now part of a separate species Cyanestes teneriffae, and there are five subspecies within the Canaries. Personally I’ve seen four of them, and don’t have any plans to go to El Hierro where the other lives. You can see from the pictures below that they are quite distinctive with their darker head markings.

The barranco through the town was basically dry as expected, but I did still see at least one Grey Wagtail. These are a local Canarian subspecies, but you’ll have to take my word for it. Lots of Canary Islands Chiffchaff, a species in its own right, were seen, but they were too active to get a decent picture of.

A couple of Grey Herons flew up the barranco into the hills. I hoped there might be seen unseen water they were heading for, but then I found one of them perched on a random boulder so no idea what they were doing.

So even in the immediate surrounds of a Tenerife tourist beach on a sunny Saturday with locals and tourists out in force there were good birds to be seen. Hopefully the pictures convey this.