I recently co-led a tour for Naturetrek to the island of La Palma, which is the most north-westerly of the Canary Islands. It's relatively undeveloped and has the most extensive laurel forests in the Canaries, where we saw both Laurel and Bolle's Pigeons. We also saw other endemics like Plain Swift, Berthelot's Pipit and Canary Island Chiffchaff. On the very last afternoon of the tour, Tom Brereton and I found a Semipalmated Plover, the first for the Canaries and only the fourth record for Spain. Local birder Robert Burton took this photo the following day...
The focus of the tour was on cetaceans and we made 3 trips on the Fancy 2 of Tazacorte. We had several close encounters with Bottle-nosed Dolphins and best of all, we saw Blainville's Beaked Whale from the boat and from land (too distant for a photograph).
We also enjoyed a range of other wildlife (including many endemics)...
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| Cory's Shearwater |
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| La Palma Lizard (endemic race of West Canary Lizard) |
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| Monarch |
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| Mediterranean Tree Frog |
We had an excellent week in very good company and I hope to return next year to add to my cetacean list!
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