Andalucian Guides Day Tours
Here are three examples of tours and routes - all of them wonderful experiences.
Please ask about our Photographic Tours
Honey Buzzard on Migration North during early May
Spring Flowers during the month of March
Enjoy a full days quality birding around the very best sites on Andalucia's southern coast. Andalucian Guides will expertly guide you using intimate knowledge of the area. We also have up-to-date information on the whereabouts of current species, migratory and rare.
From spring flowers including Orchids, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, spiders and insects. Butterfly species are quite impressive both in beauty quantity. There are also lots of "African" plants and shrubs throughout the limestone mountains and in the massive Alcornocales Parque Natural.
If you'd like to specialise in raptors for a day tour then we'll take you to where Booted, Bonelli's and Short-toed Eagles hunt. We can visit the haunts of Black shouldered Kite, Spanish Imperial Eagle, Osprey, Bald Ibis (re-introduction/hacking programme.) Marsh or Montagu's Harrier, Peregrine Falcon, Merlin, Lesser Kestrel, with good possibilities to look out for the rarer Atlas Long-legged Buzzard and the dashing Lanner Falcon, also a visitor from Morocco.
Lanner Falcon - Falco biarmicus ssp.erlangeri
If you would like to see an amazing variety of waders, terns and gulls then we can look for Collared Pratincoles, Green Sandpipers, Caspian Terns, Audouin's Gulls, to name but a few or all sorts of wonderful passerines, from Orphean Warblers, Rufous Bush Robin, Rock and Cirl Buntings, to Blue Rock Thrush and Tawny Pipit as well as Black-eared Wheatear and not forgetting the Little Bustard and Stone Curlews of Cadiz province!
Atlas Long-legged Buzzard - Buteo rufinus ssp.cirtensis
Rufous Bush Robin
Montagu's Harrier
White Storks and Cattle Egrets
Northern Bald Ibis
Bonelli's Eagle
Mediterranean Chameleon
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Andalucia has a rich variety of wildlife, history and culture from the Phoenicians to the Spanish Civil War. Gaze over the the 'Pillars of Hercules' and learn about ancient civilisations. This general nature and history day tour gives clients a real "day to remember". Lizards, Bee-eaters, Preying mantis, all kinds of butterflies, Griffon Vultures, Roe and Red Deer and Iberian black pigs are just some of the creatures waiting to be found and perhaps we'll have a chance to watch the cork-oak harvest in the huge Alcornocales forest during summer. We will see some of the spectacular geology of the area, as Africa still pushes northwards against Europe! We can also visit some minor Roman ruins, Moorish lime kilns and water cisterns as well as the option to visit the larger Roman ruins of the ancient city of Baelo Claudia opposite the Moroccan coast. If you have *children coming along, the beach is right in front of the Roman ruins (see photo below), so if they don't want to tag along they can have fun until we collect them after the visit.
Griffon Vulture
Moorish Artrwork
Southern Swallowtail
Ruins at Baelo Claudia
Collared Pratincole
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The massive deposits of silt brought down to the mouth of the Guadalquivir River at Sanlúcar de Barrameda has been changing the shape and size of SW Andalucia for thousands of years. The cause of the huge silt delta, created over thousands of years has been blamed primarily on the Roman occupation of Betica or Southern Spain. Huge forests were cleared for wood burning. Homes, spas and public baths were all heated by wood and the Romans insatiable appetite created barren, hills and ridges that stretched through the whole of the Iberian peninsula. The result erosion led to millions of tons of earth, silt and small stones being transported each winter down to the sea, resulting in the creation of the entire Coto Doñana area on the Huelva province and the marshes, and salt lagoons from a point south east of Seville near Los Palacios y Villafranca to the city of Huelva towards the border with neighbouring Portugal.
On this day tour, we travel across to the town of Trebujena, just NW of Jerez de la Frontera. Here we stop and sample a local fino sherry at the town's 'bodega' (included in the day price!). From the town we descend through the vineyards of this rich sherry area and into the lower basin of the Guadalquivir and look across to the Doñana system of parks. We follow the mighty river southwards passing the networks of fish ponds where Osprey, Red and Black Kites and Booted Eagles are usually present. Checking along the canals and flat salt marshes we'll look for Stone Curlews, Thekla and Calandra Larks, Common Kingfishers and and Pin-tailed Sandgrouse. Continuing on to the Algaida and its large pine forest is where we take lunch at a local restaurant just on the edge of one of the Doñana's Natural Parks where White-headed Duck, Marbled Ducks and Black-necked Grebes and the scarce European Chameleon can also often be found during warmer months.
Greater Flamingoes, White Storks and White-headed Ducks
Pin-tailed Sandgrouse
Greater Flamingoes
Butterflies can include Southern Swallowtails, Scarce Swallowtails, Spanish Festoons, Clouded Yellows, Brimstone's and Cleopatra's as well as darters and dragonflies
After lunch we have permission and of course a key to enter and explore the salt-pans where thousands of salt crystals are 'harvested' each summer and where many exciting species of birds can also be found. Slender-billed Gulls, Caspian and other terns can be seen diving for fish and again this is a great place to watch Osprey hunting or sitting atop a pylon or tree eating a caught fish!
Most people remember the stunning site of the pink blurr of hundreds of Greater Flamingoes and the brilliant white of Eurasian Spoonbills and Great Egrets that feed on the many brackish lagoons within this huge area. Pied Avocets and Black winged Stilts flash across the pools as Little Ringed Plovers scurry along the banks. From Autumn through to Spring this is also a wonderful place to watch the rare Black Storks, Bluethroats, Short-eared Owls and masses wader flock from Northern Europe.
On all tours we
stop for lunch at a typical local Spanish venta
(restaurant) which costs around 9 -11 Euros per head extra.
This is great Andalucian cooking - 3 courses with wine, beer or soft drinks included!
Tour normally starts at 9am and ends at around 5.30pm, meeting at La Barca de Vejer - Click for map
If
you are on holiday in the area and would like to
book a guide with Land Rover for a day,
please contact
us 
Telephone. Office (0034) 956 432 949
Mobile (0034) 647 713 641
|
Ful Day Price
For guiding 1-3 adults the price is 135 Euros per day
(not per person)
4 adults and more - add 15 € extra per adult.
(ie: 4 adults would cost for a full day tour 150r Euros
5 would cost 165€ and so on.... )
*Children up to the age of 8 are free of charge. Over 8 and under 16 add
10€ per child
Please note tour No. 3 costs an extra 15€ to cover fuel costs and the drive is approximately 1 hour 15 mins. to get to Trebujena from our normal meeting point at La Barca de Vejer |
 |
Young Eurasian Spoonbills stopping off to feed at La Janda in August during their southerly migration to Africa
|
