Castro Verde again!

We were in the Castro Verde / Mértola area again yesterday and enjoyed another reasonably successful day in spite of a much later start than we would have liked. Great Bustards, always one of the main targets, now have well-grown young but they can be hard to find and, even after a lot of searching in the usual places, the total number seen was in single figures. Little Bustards are currently even more difficult to see well.

Raptors, on the other hand, were show-offs! Montagu's Harriers, Marsh Harriers, Black Kites, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles, Common Buzzards and Lesser Kestrels would have been hard to miss.

Booted Eagle

Short-toed Eagle

Golden Orioles, Tawny Pipits, Rufous-tailed Scrub-Robins, Collared Pratincoles, Rollers, a single Purple Heron and even Kingfishers and Little Owls were amongst the day's most popular species but, with the temperature around 36 degrees, finding and showing any birds at all had became a bit of a challenge by mid-morning!