Alentejo Day.

Our visit to the Castro Verde area yesterday was our first of the year. The morning was bright and sunny and warmer than we expected but cloud built up later and back here in the Algarve we ended up having some rain overnight.

Although early migrants such as Barn Swallow and Great Spotted Cuckoo may have led us to think that spring has arrived, we were still able to find Common Cranes and flocks of Corn Buntings, Meadow Pipits, Northern Lapwings and Golden Plovers all provided further evidence that it is still very much winter.

European Golden Plover

Great Bustards are easy to see at this time of year and during the day we counted at least 90 of them. In contrast, Little Bustards proved elusive and we managed to find only one small flock numbering 11 birds.

Great Bustards - as so often, with an unattractive wire fence behind them...

...and then unfortunately spooked by a passing truck just as they were coming within range!

It was a reasonably good day for raptors. Red Kites, another winter bird here, seemed to be everywhere and Common Buzzards and Common Kestrels were also numerous. Other species seen were Black-winged Kite, Hen Harrier, Marsh Harrier, Peregrine Falcon and Spanish Imperial Eagle.

Red Kite

Peregrine Falcon

Iberian Grey Shrikes (as some would have us calling them now) were also numerous. They're hard to miss as they perch on roadside power poles and cables but elsewhere it's often their far-carrying song that draws them to our attention.

Southern (Iberian) Grey Shrike

Black-bellied Sandgrouse are also birds that are very often heard before they are seen. We saw about two dozen of them during the day but all of them were flying and we didn't find any on the ground.

White Storks have been back on their nests for some time now. One day we must count the number of nests in this area!

A happy couple!

With so many waders on our doorstep here on the coast, we don't normally go out of our way to look for them in the Alentejo but still we recorded seven species, a list that included Ruff and Wood Sandpiper, two that we might not have predicted.

Wood Sandpiper

All in all, it was decent day's birding!

Photography morning

After a few days when the weather has been less than friendly it was good this morning to see the return of sunshine and blue sky. That's not to say that it's particularly warm or that it looks in any way settled but it was enough to have me reaching for the camera and having a couple of hours checking our regular sites around Tavira.

It's only at this time of year when the blossom is out that you realise just how many almond trees there are in the Algarve - they're a real sign of spring approaching! And everywhere you look, Bermuda Buttercups provide a bright yellow carpet. They're not really buttercups, they're Oxalis pes-caprae, a noxious weed introduced from South Africa, also known as Cape Sorrel. It's a highly invasive plant, difficult to control but for all that really quite attractive!

Almond trees with Bermuda Buttercups

I started this morning at the local saltpans and within a few minutes I saw flocks of Black-tailed Godwits flying in the distance. Something had clearly upset them and very soon I saw what it was - a male Hen Harrier, presumably the same bird that we have been seeing here since before Christmas. As I followed its progress, a flock of Golden Plovers also took flight from their regular roosting area which they share with the local Stone-curlews. I watched the Hen Harrier until it went out of sight - there was no chance of a photograph. However, it was at this moment that I thought it might be time to renew my battle of wits with the Stone-curlews, birds which rarely in my experience, allow close approach. We can see them every day but not since November have I tried to photograph them.

Well, it turned out to be the same old story! There were probably close to 100 Stone-curlews and maybe 50 Golden Plover but only a few within reasonable camera range. I managed just a few quick shots before they joined their friends in the middle of the field.

Eurasian Stone-curlew

European Golden Plover

This is the same area where for the last three weeks or more we have been watching Short-eared Owls and where we in turn have been kept under surveillance by the local Little Owl. I like to think that he has got used to seeing us and that he chose this pose realising that the yellow lichen on the roof would look nice against the blue of the sky!

Little Owl

Nearby, I found this group of Spoonbills. They're common enough here but never taken for granted.

Eurasian Spoonbills

And a little further on these two Caspian Terns were roosting along with a crowd of gulls - mostly Lesser Black-backs, but also two or three Audouin's.

Caspian Terns

Last photo before lunch was this Black Redstart. Any thoughts of an afternoon photo session disappeared with the arrival from the west of a huge black cloud and 'rain stopped play' once again!

Black Redstart

Just Being Sociable

We were fortunate in 2009 to travel to The Gambia, Tanzania, Colombia, the Caribbean, Arizona, Texas and California, all of them visits for the sole purpose of watching birds. And, of course, we spent many weeks in Portugal with occasional cross-border excursions into Spain. Heaven knows how many species we saw during the year but it was quite a lot!

Although the year list includes many highlights, one bird that gave us particular pleasure was the Sociable Lapwing that we found in the Alentejo just before Christmas. So much so that, three weeks on, we thought it would be nice if we could go and find it again, spend some more time watching it and take a few more photographs.

Sociable Lapwing is a species that is listed by the IUCN as Critically Endangered because its population has undergone a very rapid reduction. It breeds in northern and central Kazakhstan and south-central Russia, normally migrating to spend the winter in Israel, Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and north-west India, occasionally in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Oman. No wonder then that the bird we found near Benviuda is only the ninth that has been recorded in Portugal - quite simply it is a long way from where it should be.

From its plumage it is a bird in its first winter and therefore with no previous experience of migration. The explanation for it appearing in the Alentejo seems to be that instead of migrating with other Sociable Lapwings it has joined up with flocks of Northern Lapwings and travelled west with them. Many of the thousands of Northern Lapwings currently wintering in the Alentejo, and the many Golden Plovers that are with them, have probably moved further this winter than they usually do because of the extreme weather that has been affecting much of Europe. These are some of our favourite birds and seeing them in such large numbers meant that a trip to the Alentejo was always going to be worthwhile whether or not we re-located the Sociable Lapwing.


In the event, we had another great day. We saw Great Bustards, Little Bustards, Common Cranes, two Spanish Imperial Eagles and much more...and we found the Sociable Lapwing in almost exactly the same spot that we first saw it. How long will it stay, we wonder? Long enough for us to pay it another social call during the next few weeks, we hope!

Lagoa dos Salgados and more

Back in the Algarve and yesterday we headed for Lagoa dos Salgados. With a new camera to try out we concentrated mostly on the waders including a surprising Buff-breasted Sandpiper, the first time we have seen this species in Portugal. The camera is a Canon 50D and there's hardly been time yet to read the manual but here are a few 'first attempts':

European Golden Plover

Ringed Plover

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Osprey

Dunlin

Little Stint

Today we were around the Cape St Vincent area in the morning where Northern Wheatears and Pied Flycatchers were the most numerous passerine migrants. A Golden Oriole was an unexpected find but otherwise we saw the usual suspects including Red-billed Chough, Blue Rock Thrush and a flock of 19 Little Bustards. We had lunch at the raptor watchpoint but in our short time there saw only a Hen Harrier and a handful of Booted Eagles.

On the way back we stopped for an hour or so at the Alvor Estuary where we had an enjoyable walk and saw the expected Greater Flamingos, Spoonbill and a selection of waders that included Greenshank and Little Stint.