Old Friends

These last three days we've had multiple visits to Castro Marim and to the Tavira and Santa Luzia saltpans. As a result and not surprisingly we've been seeing the same birds - that's not just the same species, we mean the same individuals.

Some individuals are easily recognised. Yesterday, for instance we saw both of the local hybrid 'grey egrets' that have been in the Tavira area for several years. They each have their favourite feeding areas and can be found most days without too much effort. They're like old friends.

Presumed hybrid Western Reef Egret x Little Egret

Colour-ringed birds are another obvious example of individuals that can be easily recognised. We're currently looking for a Black-tailed Godwit that has been on the saltpans here during the last three winters. We're hoping it has survived to return.

Black-tailed Godwit

There's currently a Black-tailed Godwit at Santa Luzia that has a damaged leg and can therefore be identified as an individual. It feeds in exactly the same place day after day. The likelihood is that the other Godwits feeding with it are also repeatedly using the same small area - not just day after day but perhaps, year after year.

Each year we find wintering Bluethroats in the exactly the same small patch of vegetation, Caspian Terns on the same saltpan, Stone-curlews in the same field. How many of them are, we wonder, like the colour-ringed Godwit, individuals returning to places they know to be safe and to have a good supply of food? And, of course, it's not only the repeated use of wintering sites, for birds heading for sub-Saharan Africa it's reliance on the same stopover sites for 're-fuelling'.

Bluethroat

So then there is the question of what happens to migrant birds such as these when the places they know and rely on are changed from one year to the next. What happens to the bird that flies hundreds of miles and arrives tired and hungry to find that its familiar reedbed has been destroyed, its usual wetland drained, a golf course where that stubble field used to be? Some will no doubt be able to adapt, to find another site, but for some it will be the difference between surviving or not.

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...

A Wet Morning in Paradise

There was 8/8 cloud cover when we set out this morning on a walk around the local saltpans here in Tavira. The light was poor and rain was forecast and it was no surprise when we saw one or two distant flashes of lightning. After little more than an hour’s birding we decided to turn back, a good decision as we just made it to the car in time to avoid a soaking.

On the edge of town a Subalpine Warbler, a Cetti’s Warbler and a Common Redstart got us off to a decent start and when we started around the saltpans we soon saw as many as 17 species of waders including a Green Sandpiper and a couple of Common Snipe that flew over. We didn’t get chance to look carefully at the hundreds of gulls but at least a dozen each of Slender-billed and Audouin’s were amongst them. Most numerous now are Lesser Black-backs and we can expect to see numbers of Mediterranean Gulls increasing over the coming weeks.

Ducks included Mallard, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler and Gadwall, there were Little Grebes, Little Egrets, Spoonbills, Grey Herons and 200 or more Greater Flamingos. Two Kingfishers were presumably birds that have arrived to spend the winter with us and the same is true of the many Chiffchaffs that were feeding low in the scrubby vegetation alongside the resident Sardinian Warblers and Zitting Cisticolas. Soon they will be joined by Bluethroats.

No photography today so here are a couple we prepared earlier (as they say) of today’s most numerous waders.

Black-tailed Godwit

Pied Avocet

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 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

Colour-ringing

Information has now been received about two of the colour-ringed birds that we reported recently.

The Black-tailed Godwit seen in Tavira on Boxing Day 2008 was a male ringed as an adult in SW Iceland in April 2002. It was seen in the Netherlands and France in 2003 and there were more sightings in France in 2003, 2004 and 2005. However, it has clearly taken a liking to Tavira as this is its third consecutive winter on the saltpans on the edge of town.

The Eurasian Spoonbill that we reported from SW Spain in January was ringed as a nestling in the Netherlands in July 1994. There have been numerous sightings since then, mainly in France but it was seen in the Huelva area as long ago as 1996 and has been reported as a winter visitor there in 2003/04, 2004/05 and 2005/06.