A Tour of the Saltpans

We took ourselves off to Olhão yesterday afternoon. It’s the next large town along the coast to the west of here. We were hoping to see Collared Pratincoles, which we eventually did. Not surprisingly, Kentish Plovers, Little Terns and Black-winged Stilts all seemed to have young around the saltpans and it looked as though a few pairs of Pied Avocets might also have nested.

Little Tern

Black-winged Stilt

With all this breeding going on it was hard to think about ’autumn’ wader passage but there were at least 120 Black-tailed Godwits in the area, plus a couple of Ringed Plovers and presumably these are birds that have returned here from breeding grounds far to the north. Let’s hope they’re not all failed breeders! Later at Santa Luzia we saw more Black-tailed Godwits and two Oystercatchers.

At Santa Luzia there were 26 Audouin’s Gulls. A colour-ring on one of them was easy to read from the photograph, but unfortunately that isn‘t the case with the Spoonbill - one of at least 50 of this species seen at Castro Marim this morning. Also at Castro Marim were yet more Black-tailed Godwits and two Greenshanks but what really had us looking twice at the calendar was the sight of a drake Northern Pintail!

Audouin's Gull

Eurasian Spoonbill

Yesterday we spent a while watching Bee-eaters taking food to nest-holes here in Tavira. There was no possibility of photographing them but this morning at Castro Marim we were able to almost walk up to one.

European Bee-eater

We also managed without much difficulty to photograph a Little Owl in Tavira - presumed, as it was on the same building, to be a bird that was completely unco-operative on a previous visit. That's birds for you!

Little Owl

Sunshine After The Rain

The day started cloudy and there was even a slight rain shower but by lunchtime, as we were watching the local Little Owls in trees across the road, the sun appeared. Time to forget about 'admin', grab the camera and bins and head off to the saltpans!

In no time we were watching Bee-eaters prospecting for nest sites. Numbers have increased over the last few days; today there were about a dozen but none came near enough for a photograph. At the same time a pair of Zitting Cisticolas was displaying and several times the 'wet-my-lips' call of a Quail came from an adjacent cereal crop over which many House Martins, Barn and Red-rumped Swallows hawked for insects. We tried hard to photograph Yellow Wagtails but had to settle for just watching them busily feeding just out of camera range, numerous but unco-operative. Most were iberiae but there were also one or two flava. In the end, like yesterday, we had to be content with a few more wader images.

Kentish Plover

Stone-curlew

Sanderling

On the way home we made a slight diversion to see whether Nightingales had arrived at what is the nearest regular site. Here our luck changed as we almost immediately located our target and with just about enough light for a photograph. No doubt there will soon be evenings when we go there simply to listen.

Nightingale