Last Week

A week of very mixed weather - some days warm and spring-like, others almost monsoon-like! Clive Viney's description, “gloriously unpredictable”, seems just about right!

Last Saturday I had a full day out, birding most of the daylight hours, visiting Ludo/Quinta do Lago and Castro Marim as well as several sites around Tavira. Although a long list wasn’t the object of the exercise, over 90 species were noted, including some, like Water Rail, that were only heard. Highlights at Ludo were six Booted Eagles, an Osprey, two Black-winged Kites and three Siskins, a species that we don’t see much in the Eastern Algarve. At Castro Marim, it was nice to see ten Ruff.

On Monday I went to Olhão and Fuseta and on Thursday to Castro Marim again, but otherwise activity has centred on Tavira where there are plenty of birds, particularly waders, to look at and photograph.

Common Greenshank

Grey Plover

Ringed Plover

Kentish Plover

Common Redshank

Eurasian Curlew

Sardinian Warbler

The number of gulls here has fallen significantly now. There are still lots of Lesser Black-backs and Black-headeds but nowhere near as many as there were a month ago. Most of the Meds seem to have gone, I’ve seen no more than ten Audouin’s all week and the single Slender-billed near Forte do Rato was the first I’d seen in a while. Amongst the Lesser Black-backs at Fuseta was another one that had been colour-ringed at Gloucester in the UK.

Lesser Black-backed Gull - with crab for lunch

Audouin's Gull

An Osprey was seen again at Santa Luzia saltpans; it was on the same post where we saw it three weeks ago. I wonder where else it gets to. A Black-winged Kite was at the edge of Tavira, not far in fact from the Gran-Plaza shopping centre (of which the least said the better). Barn Swallows and House Martins are quite numerous now, as of course are Crag Martins but Red-rumped Swallows don‘t seem to be back yet.

June is now about half way through her tour in Uganda. There has been little news other than confirmation that the 'must-see' species, Shoebill, has indeed been seen! That’s always a relief!

Colour-rings

We're always on the lookout for colour rings when we're out and about. Greater Flamingos, Spoonbills, Black-tailed Godwits and various gulls are the species on which we most often find them.

Several of the Audouin's Gulls that we've seen this winter around Tavira have been ringed. Mostly they're birds that were ringed at the nesting colony in the Ebro Delta in Catalonia. One that we reported in November was ringed there as a nestling in June, 2000 and in a previous winter had been seen at nearby Santa Luzia. Another, however, was from Isla Moltona at the southern end of Mallorca.

Audouin's Gulls

This Lesser Black-backed Gull is one we spotted earlier this month at Olhão 'docapesca'. It's obviously a bird in its first winter and we are told that it was ringed in June 2009 at Gloucester in the UK. We're also told that it's a female.

Griffons and Gulls

The weather here remains dry but temperatures are falling and today’s forecast maximum is ‘only’ 21° C. For a few days now a strong wind has been a feature.

Yesterday morning from the window here on the outskirts of Tavira we watched for half an hour or so a group of 15 Griffon Vultures struggling to make headway in the wind. We don’t often see Griffons at this eastern end of the coast but we also saw two last week near Castro Marim. Presumably these are young birds that are gradually and inexpertly finding their way to the Tarifa area for the short crossing to North Africa.


We now have hundreds of gulls on the local saltpans. Six species are involved and it’s not difficult to see them all together. Lesser Black-backs are the most numerous and at the other end of the scale there are just a handful of Slender-billed Gulls.







We were very pleased earlier this year when SPEA announced at last that they would no longer be treating Slender-billed Gull as a rarity requiring a description to be submitted with our records. With an expanding population in Iberia, the species has not been a rarity in Portugal for several years now but it is regular only here in the south-eastern corner of the country. As these decisions are made in far away Lisbon where Slender-billed is hardly if ever seen it has taken time for its true status to be acknowledged. In 2008 we found more than 70 individuals on 23 different dates and we are now seeing them most days.

A Break from 'Admin'

We spent most of Monday at Castro Marim including a decent walk around Cerro do Bufo in the morning. Most of the expected birds were seen although for once we failed to find Little Bustards. On the way home we looked in at Altura tank hoping as always to find something unusual but it's been a while now since this short diversion brought any real reward. Actually there were 60 Little Grebes which is quite a good number for such a small site but we live in hope of finding another Red-knobbed Coot there or maybe a Grey Phalarope. Next time, maybe! At the end of the day we had seen 77 species, several of them in quite large numbers so there were no complaints.

Since then far too much time has been spent on 'admin', a term that covers everything we do that isn't birding! Finally, late this afternoon, we cracked, we couldn't take any more and had to get out for a couple of hours. We grabbed binoculars and the 50D and headed for the local saltpans, five minutes drive away.

The light was fading fast as these photographs were taken and well before we got to the Audouin's Gulls the camera really ought to have been put away. We spent a while watching the Stone-curlews and trying to work out how we might get close enough to get some proper photographs. We reckon there are now about 80 birds and it was impossible to resist taking a couple of 'snaps' even from a distance.

Black-tailed Godwit

Common Redshank

Greenshank

Stone-curlews

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Kentish Plover

Audouin's Gull

After watching a flock of about 100 Greater Flamingos flying across the saltpans against the backdrop of a typically vivid Algarve sunset, we thought about heading for home. Instead, not yet satisfied, we drove a short way and then sat in the car listening to the Cetti's Warblers, Azure-winged Magpies, Crested Larks and Little Owls and watching Cattle Egrets streaming in to roost. A Fox appeared from nowhere and for a moment sat in the road and then we got our bonus, a Black-crowned Night-Heron - a really scarce bird in these parts even if we have seen lots of them elsewhere. It would have been greedy to have asked for more...

Santa Luzia

Just a short visit late this afternoon to the saltpans at nearby Santa Luzia. The number Audouin's Gulls there had increased to 63, some Kentish Plovers had young while others were still incubating and there was a taste of things to come - the prospect of more and more waders to photograph!

Audouin's Gull

Kentish Plover

Black-tailed Godwit

A Busy Week

Another busy few days of birding has seen us spending lots more time in the Baixo Alentejo, making several visits to Castro Marim and still finding a few minutes to have a look round Tavira. Today we rounded off the week with a trip to Quinta do Lago.

In the Castro Verde area we have seen countless Great Bustards and Little Bustards, there have been excellent views of Lesser Kestrels, several sightings of Spanish Imperial Eagle, Great Spotted Cuckoos have been easy to find, Black-eared Wheatears have returned and yesterday a Black Vulture was soaring with about 20 Eurasian Griffons. After really good views of them last weekend, on our last two trips we have struggled to find Black-bellied Sandgrouse but while we have been searching we have enjoyed watching and listening to the song flights of the many Calandra Larks. There hasn’t been time for much photography but it would be a poor show if we couldn’t get a picture of the area’s most numerous species - Corn Bunting.

Corn Bunting

Our walk around the saltpans at Castro Marim on Tuesday morning took us six hours to complete - there were just so many birds to look at. After lunch, we walked some more! Highlights for us among more than 80 species seen were the single Little Bustard that was virtually the first bird we saw when we arrived, a high count of 30 Caspian Terns, Audouin’s Gulls, a Spectacled Warbler, several Stone-curlews and a Bluethroat.

We made a further brief visit to Castro Marim on Thursday when this colour-ringed Spoonbill was very obliging. In an immediate response to our report, we learned from Otto Overdijk that the bird, a male, had been ringed as a nestling 2120 km away in the Netherlands on 24th May 2008.

Eurasian Spoonbill

Around Tavira we have seen Blue Rock Thrushes, Stone-curlews and Dartford Warbler, heard Water Rail, Cetti’s Warbler and Quail and managed to photograph Woodchat Shrike. On Monday, we saw two different grey egrets, presumably the same birds that we have seen many times before and which are thought to be Little Egret x Western Reef Egret hybrids.

Highlights from Quinta do Lago today were three Glossy Ibises, two Audouin’s Gulls, a Purple Heron and a Bluethroat.

Audouin's and Slender-billed Gulls

We’ve had a couple of days of photography around Tavira. Although we’ve spent most of our time sitting in the car, we haven’t actually been anywhere that we wouldn’t be happy to walk to from home.

At this time of the year the saltpans here offer plenty of opportunities to photograph waders, gulls, Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Spoonbills and Flamingos. Although it was impossible to resist a few shots of Black-tailed Godwit, Sanderling, Common Redshank, Little Stint, Dunlin and Ruff, we were keen to get decent images of Audouin’s and Slender-billed Gulls.

Audouin’s Gulls now breed not far from here and their numbers are increasing. Currently there are about 150 on the saltpans just outside of town. Slender-billed Gull is still a species classed as a rarity in Portugal, which means that we should be submitting records with descriptions to SPEA! The fact is that the species is quite common in the south east of the country and at the moment we can go out pretty much everyday and see them. Yesterday there were 31 at Santa Luzia, today there were 25 on the edge of Tavira where we watched them bathing in a fresh water pool.

We’re still sorting through the day’s images but here is one that caught the two target species together - and without any of the Lesser Black-backed and Yellow-legged Gulls that seem to want to be in every picture, whether invited or not!

Audouin's and Slender-billed Gulls