birding...

2001 [June] - Ignacio Yúfera

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I traveled alone, using Clarke and Collins A Birdwatcher's Guide to the Canary Islands as main reference. I found it quite useful, although slightly outdated in a couple of places (inevitable since it was published in 1996); especially regarding most of the wet areas which were dry. Access to the locations mentioned below is described in the book. Since most of the island's terrain is dry plains, I expected to use the telescope a lot. In fact I rarely ever needed it: the birds, once spotted, allowed me to get quite close as long as I stayed in the car. 10x40 binoculars were more than enough, and the strong wind made the telescope difficult to use anyway.

2002 [October] - Matthew Harrison

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Any area of cover around the hotel and apartment complexes should be checked, while the beach regularly produces Yellow-legged Gull and a few Spanish Sparrows. The area around the harbour forms part of the old town known as El Castillo. A short stretched of newly constructed promenade, running north from the harbour itself, adjoins an area of rocky shoreline which often produces a few waders, while the harbour walls are a good place to sea watch from...

2003 [April] - G.A.Smith and N.J.Smith

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This was mainly a family holiday over the Easter period, staying at the excellent Fuerteventura Princess, just north of Jandia, in Esquinzo Bay. There was, however plenty of time for birding, as we called in at sites on the way to other areas of the island...

2003 [November] - Alan Miller

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Anne and I travelled to the Canarian Island of Fuerteventura for two weeks birding, sight-seeing and sun. This report chronicles the former, however it must be said that there were few occasions when we didn't have our bins to hand. The attraction to Fuerteventura was the prospect of the endemic Chat and other specialist species found on the island...

2004 [February] - Henk Hendriks

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When I had the opportunity to escape the cold winter weather in the Netherlands, I took that opportunity with both hands. I decided to visit together with my wife one of the eastern Canary Islands, Fuerteventura. The main reason was that on this island, one or possibly two endemic species occur, the Fuerteventura or Canary Island Chat and the Fuerteventura Blue Tit...

2004 [January] - John & Janet Bowler

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We spent 2 weeks in the Fiesta Gardens, Corralejo on a last minute package break with Thompsons holidays. The flight was by Britannia (Glasgow-Fuerteventura return) and we mostly walked or used local buses to access sites. We rented a car (Citroen Saxo) from Europcar for 3 days to look for bustards and to reach more distant sites (40 euro per day)...

2004 [March] - Falk Wicker

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As there are many trip reports on the Canaries, this one will give you just a few recommendations on some areas (which are quite well covered by Gosney's and Clarke's guides and many trip reports) visited during our holiday. Its fairly unnecessary to give information on what flights, car etc. we booked, because there are lots of websites about it on the internet. I think it's clear that Fuerteventura is a rather cheap destination.

2004 [May] - Mark Cornish

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I found many good birds immediately in the desert around the resort of Cateles de Fustes. The golf course here held Berthelot's Pipits, Souhern Grey Shrikes, a family of Kentish plovers and Hoopes all down to a few metres. Behind the last villas to the west behind the golf on the desert area I saw 10+ Canary Island Chats, several Trumpeter Finches, Berthelot's Pipits, Lesser Short-toed Larks, Black-bellied sandgrouse and Spectacled Warblers with excellent views of all. Chats, pipits, Larks and Trumpeter Finches were seen at most places around the island away from the immediate coast.

2005 [April] - Jeff Butcher

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Having read Clarke and Collins (A Birdwatcher’s Guide to the Canary Islands) we chose to stay at Caleta de Fustes (El Castillo). We had an apartment at Castillo Suites with a good sea view, although it was noisy at night which didn’t help early morning rising for birding. We hired a car locally for 5 days...

2005 [January] - David & Annette Tomlinson

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...The Gorriones beach is superb – just miles and miles of sand for birding/walking/jogging. Wonderful views of Slender-billed gull. Lots of naturists – care with binoculars...

2005 [March] - Chris Knox

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..I was fortunate enough on this trip to meet a semi resident of El Cotillo Derek Bradbury, who although to his own admittance is never a birder, has a keen interest in the wildlife and conservation of the El Cotillo area, and is especially interested in locating and watching Houbara Bustards, we spent several successful mornings doing just that...

2006 [February] - Stephen Dunstan

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This trip was a mixture of birding and family sightseeing. Given restrictions on time in the field the target was to see the Chat, the Bustard and a minimum of 50 species whilst accepting a few island specialties might be missed. This was achieved, and the finding of a Spanish national rarity added greatly to the bonhomie of an already good week...

2006 [March] - Jan Vermeulen

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This report covers a visit to Fuerteventura from 6th March till 13th March 2006. I was accompanied by Vital & Riet van Gorp and my girlfriend Willemien van Ginneken. Having neglected my Western Palaearctic list for the last years despite the availability of such inexpensive holidays, I decided to make a visit to Fuerteventura, a destination I should have visited in 1998 when I was in Tenerife...

2006 [November] - Andy Millar

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Around the resort I saw small flocks of Spanish Sparrows and Collared Doves continually flying about. A Chiffchaff had taken up a winter residence in a small tree outside our patio, which always provided something to look at. Also seen from the balcony was a female Pied Flycatcher...

2007 [February] – Frances Gatens

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My primary aim was to find the Houbara Bustard and secondly I hoped to see such birds as the Fuerteventura Chat, previously know as the Canary Island Chat…..

2008 [March] - Stuart Fisher

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Apart form one trip to Jandia and one trip to Correlejo this holiday was spent within a few kilometers of Caleta de Fuste on the west coast with several trips to the nearby Barranco de la Torre and one to Barranco de Rio Cabras just north of the airport runway...

2009 [December] - Frances Gatens

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This trip was the sixth time that I had visited Fuerteventura. I had been to the island earlier this year, 25th February until 4th March to be precise. On this occasion I was hoping for better weather conditions; that is to say, plenty of water in the main waterbodies; however, this was not the case...

2010 [March] - Michael Newhouse

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After a pleasant flight on Thomson we drove to Caleta de Fuste where we stayed in the Amuley Mar 2 complex for 4 weeks. We had a car for all the time and travelled extensively around the island...

2011 [February] - Stephen Burch

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This is an illustrated trip report for a 7 day holiday on Fuerteventura, which is one of the eastern, desert like Canary Islands. The main birding specialities of this island are Houbara Bustard, Cream Coloured Courser, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Fuerteventura Chat and Trumpeter Finch....

2011 [September] - Brian Stretch & Jacquie Whittle - Lanzarote & Fuerteventura

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Although not a birding holiday, inevitably a number of birds were seen while touring the island of Lanzarote and a couple of special trips were made to seek out a few of the key species. All species listed below were seen on Lanzarote except for a day trip to Fuerteventura and the birds seen there are mentioned as such...

2012 [March] - David Collins

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...in the bare field beyond we finally spotted our first cream-coloured coursers of the trip. At first there seemed to be just two, but as is so often the case with this species, the more we looked the more we found. The final tally was six. ... best of all was a magnificent male white-spotted bluethroat, which came out of the marginal vegetation to feed in full view on the mud just in front of us...