Hawfinch and more

With the temperature now regularly reaching 30° C or more, these days we aren't doing many long walks! Sitting and waiting for a few birds to photograph seems to be a much better plan.

Hawfinch is not a species that we see every day in the Eastern Algarve so the opportunity to photograph one this morning was a rare treat. Unfortunately, it didn't stay around very long and seldom held an attractive pose but we did get a few reasonably pleasing images. Although we have seen no clear evidence of it, we assume that olives must form an important part of their diet here.

Red-legged Partridges are common enough, although not seen so much along the coast. We haven't always found them easy to photograph - their usual habit is to walk away leaving us with a shot of a disappearing rear end. For once this one just kept on coming towards us.

When we are guiding we find that Cattle Egrets often don't merit a second look from people but they really are quite attractive birds at this time of year and we certainly weren't going to turn down the chance of this portrait.