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A day trip out from our mountain based holiday residence took us the 3 hours to Morrocoy National Park on the Northern Coast.

We tried our best to get at least a half day to relax on the beach and enjoy the sea but we were drawn to the wildlife that was around us so little time time to get the beach towl too wet! although it did rain.








Tri-coloured Heron

The Yellow Headed Caracara (Milvago chimachima) is a small bird of prey found in tropical & sub-tropical South America & Southern Central America. They are related to falcons but are much slower in flight and do much of their hunting and feeding on the ground. With broad wings and a long tail they have buff head and underparts, brown upperparts and wings and a barred cream and brown tail. Their natural habitat is savannah, swamps and forest edges, but they have also adapted to urban areas and are commonly seen in many South American cities. Yellow Headed Caracaras have a very varied diet including small reptiles & amphibians, insects, fruit and carrion. It will also take ticks from cattle, giving it the nickname 'Tickbird'.

The European Stonechat (Saxicola rubicola) is a small passerine 11.5–13 cm long and genetic evidence has placed it and its relatives in the Old World flycatcher family Muscicapidae.

The summer male has black upperparts, a black head, an orange throat and breast, and a white belly and vent. It also has white half-collar on the sides of its neck, a small white scapular patch on the wings, and a very small white patch on the rump often streaked with black. The female has brown upperparts and head, and no white neck patches, rump or belly, these areas being streaked dark brown on paler brown, the only white being the scapular patch on the wings and even this often being buffy-white. Birds are frequently seen flicking their wings while perched, often doing so on the tops of low bushes. As its name suggests, birds utter a sharp loud call that sound like two stones being tapped together.

They breed on heath, moors, grassland, and wasteland that have some dense shrubs, such as gorse, in which it can build a nest.

Stonechats are primarily insectivorous, feeding on caterpillars, moths, ants, spiders and flies, though they will also take worms and snails, and feed on seeds and berries in the autumn and winter.

This year however there was one suprise, just down the coast at Flambrough a bird had shown up in a small wooded copse close to the cliffs. A possible Atlas Flycatcher. To be honest a week on and after much debate the birds true identity is still somewhat of a mystery. Some say Pied Flycacher x Collored Flycatcher hybrid, others say Iberian Pied Flycatcher, some really dont think it is the first ever visit of an Atlas Pied Flycatcher..... while others do