My wife and I travelled to Caleta de Fuste from London Stansted airport on a self-catering package holiday arranged at short notice.

This purpose-built resort is very close to the southern side of the airport, and as such, we didn’t bother with coach transfers. Taxis are readily available at the airport and in resort and are not expensive. Ours were a little over 10 euros each way and saved us a lot of time.

We stayed at the Puerto Caleta Apartments. This appears to be perhaps one of the older establishments in this rapidly-developing area, and as such the accommodation left a little to be desired. It was adequate, but looked tired and in need of some TLC. Some of the fixtures and fitting were loose and the doors and windows didn’t seem too secure. There was evidence of them having been attacked in the past and we learned locally that break-ins were by no means unheard of. We were fortunate to have an east-facing apartment on the first floor with views to the sea, the harbour and the mountains. Due to the perceived low level of security of the apartment, we carried everything of value with us whenever we went out. Inconvenient? Yes, but less so than losing cash, passports, tickets, optical equipment and cameras would have been.

There are many places to eat and drink, as was expected. A large beer, of which we sampled quite a few, can cost anywhere from 1.50 to 3.00 euro’s so its worth shopping around. There are plenty of smallish supermarkets in the town but these aren’t cheap, particularly if one wants to purchase English brands.

Caleta de Fuste is fairly isolated if you don’t hire a car. There are several car hire establishments in the town, but we chose to do without. Plenty of beer and whisky doesn’t mix well with driving!

We can highly recommend Caleta Cycles. We hired a couple of mountain bikes from Estelle and Geoff who run the business and were very impressed with their friendly and efficient service.

They have a website at http://www.sunnyfuerteventura.com/caleta-cycles/index.html

Caleta Cycles open every day from 09:30am to 17:00pm. Their telephone number is 0034 6766 00190 and their email address is caletacycles@yahoo.com

It cost us 21 euro’s to hire the two bikes for the day, but be aware that a 50 euro deposit is required at the time of hiring.

This wasn’t to be a full-blooded birding trip. We have visited the Canary Islands several times and have previously seen most of the endemic species so this was to be mainly a relaxing end-of-winter sun holiday with a little bit of birding thrown in. I seldom go far without at least a pair of binoculars in my bag! This time I packed a small travel ‘scope and a lightweight monopod too – just in case. We each took a normal ‘household’ digital camera but, as it turned out, I seriously wished I had had some better photographic kit to hand. The reason will be revealed shortly.

Birding  - finally……

Having dumped our kit at the apartment we walked to the beach – only about 5 minutes away. The ‘beach’ is very rocky and great care is needed if one intends leaving the safety of the paved promenade. The beach holds several areas that proved attractive to waders, but one of the best was found by turning right (south) onto the promenade at the end of the main street. There are some concrete benches situated along here and the one by the fourth lamp post was one of my favourites, giving good views over an area holding quite a lot of birds at the right state of the tide.

Collared Doves and Spanish Sparrows are everywhere! After a couple of days in the resort I was pretty much sick of the sight of them. However, the beach held the following species:

Collared Dove

Spanish Sparrow

Turnstone

Sanderling

Ringed Plover

Whimbrel

Grey Plover

Common Sandpiper

Black-headed Gull

Sandwich Tern

Little Egret

At 16:45 hrs that afternoon, only about three hours after we had landed, I got the surprise of my life. I was checking the Gulls and Terns in the area when a Red-billed Tropicbird, Phaethon aethereus, suddenly appeared! We had good views for several minutes as this spectacular bird came close inshore. It seemed to be checking the areas in which anglers were fishing from the rocks and was seen to approach a couple of them quite closely. We had good views from about 80 metres away. I hardly need to mention that this was ‘lifer’ for both of us. A cracking start to the holiday.

The following day we set of to walk to the Barranco de la Torre, the seaward end of which was about 5.5 kilometres from our apartment. We experienced some very light rain and cloud when we set off, but the sun soon reappeared to give another very hot day with light southerly winds. We didn’t hurry, so the walk took us about an hour and three-quarters each way, not counting time actually in the Barranco. Along the way, we logged all the previous species – except the Red-billed tropicbird – and added the following:

Kentish Plover

Dunlin

Berthelot's Pipit

Lesser Short-toed Lark

Grey Heron

We only walked about one kilometre into the Barranco and spent some time sitting in the shade of some palm trees waiting to see what would turn up.

Sardinian Warbler

Southern Grey Shrike

Egyptian Vulture

Hoopoe

Rock Dove

Kestrel

Raven

Common Buzzard

Spectacled Warbler

We were lucky enough to watch two Egyptian Vultures being mobbed by a Raven.

Later that day, a few Common Swifts and House Martins were seen passing over the town.

Our next birding trip was on the 21st when we again visited the Barranco de la Torre. This time we cycled and it only took about 20 –25 minutes to reach the Barranco.

We went further along it this time and were rewarded with excellent views of Fuerteventura Chat x 3 and a handsome Barbary Falcon that decided to perch on a cliff face and look at us for several minutes. Trumpeter Finches were numerous along the track.

Grey Heron

Common Buzzard

Lesser Short-toed Lark

Berthelot's Pipit

Spanish Sparrow

Kestrel

Raven

Rock Dove

Common Swift

Spectacled Warbler

Hoopoe

Fuerteventura Chat

Trumpeter Finch

Southern Grey Shrike

Barbary Falcon

Egyptian Vulture

Upon returning to Caleta de Fuste, we spent a little while sea-watching and saw good numbers of Cory’s Shearwater streaming northwards.

Late morning on the 23rd we found the Red-billed Tropicbird again at the same location as before. We watched it for about 15-20 minutes before it flew out of sight. Late afternoon the same day, we were walking around the small headland situated near the northern edge of Caleta de Fuste when we found it again. You can perhaps imagine how I felt when a second bird joined it! We watched the two of them at quite close range for about half-an-hour during which time a blazed away frantically with my digital camera, hoping despite it being woefully inadequate, that I might get a shot of two to prove the sighting of two such rarities.

Will we go back to that resort? Almost certainly. We didn’t do the Barranco justice, as there is a lot more to explore further in, but I like having a reason to go back.

Here is the full list of species logged during the trip:

Common Name	Latin Name
Cory's Shearwater	Calonectris diomedea
Red-billed Tropicbird	Phaethon aethereus
Little Egret	Egretta garzetta
Grey Heron	Ardea cinerea
Egyptian Vulture	Neophron percnopterus
Common Buzzard	Buteo buteo insularum
Kestrel	Falco tinnunculus
Barbary Falcon	Falco pelegrinoides [peregrinus]
Grey Plover	Pluvialis squatarola
Ringed Plover	Charadrius hiaticula
Kentish Plover	Charadrius alexandrinus
Whimbrel	Numenius phaeopus
Common Sandpiper	Tringa hypoleucos
Turnstone	Arenaria interpres
Sanderling	Calidris alba
Dunlin	Calidris alpina
Black-headed Gull	Larus ridibundus
Sandwich Tern	Sterna sandvicensis
Rock Dove	Columba livia canariensis
Collared Dove	Streptopelia decaocto
Common Swift	Apus apus
Hoopoe	Upupa epops
Lesser Short-toed Lark	Calandrella rufescens
House Martin	Delichon urbica
Berthelot's Pipit	Anthus berthelotii
Fuerteventura Chat	Saxicola dacotiae
Sardinian Warbler	Sylvia melanocephala
Spectacled Warbler	Sylvia conspicillata
Southern Grey Shrike	Lanius meridionalis
Raven	Corvus corax
Spanish Sparrow	Passer hispaniolensis
Trumpeter Finch	Rhodopechys githaginea