Back in the Algarve at last!

We’ve been back in the Algarve for just a week now and seem to have timed our return quite well.  The weather is very pleasant but no longer uncomfortably hot, children have returned to school and birds are migrating!

 Short-toed Eagle

Already we have been to Castro Marim, Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura, Lagoa dos Salgados (twice) and Sagres (twice) and seen more than 120 species.

Castro Marim, usually one of our favourite reserves, proved to be something of a disappointment.  There are plenty of birds there, particularly in the Cerro do Bufo sector but with access to the site restricted it is difficult to get close to many of them.  Highlights were Black-necked Grebes, Audouin’s & Slender-billed Gulls and of course there are hundreds of waders and Greater Flamingos but a telescope was definitely a necessity.  The salt harvest is in progress and it looks to have been a productive season.

 Salt harvest and Black-tailed Godwits

 Juvenile Greater Flamingo

Dunlin

There was also much salt-related activity at Ludo.  As so often, it was raptors there that proved most popular with five Booted Eagles putting on a show and a single female Marsh Harrier quartering the reedbed.

Booted Eagle

At Quinta do Lago, Little Bitterns were the stars.  We saw seven or maybe eight different birds.  A Water Rail showed well; a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron and a Whiskered Tern were unexpected treats.  We lost count of the number of Western Swamphens but nine of them were together, completely in the open on the golf course; two Glossy Ibises took off and left before we had much chance to look at them.  Five species of gulls were on the lagoa de São Lourenço and two or three Kingfishers were chasing each other about.

Lagoa de São Lourenço from the hide

The Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura has become a favourite place at this time of the year and it didn’t disappoint – it was full of birds!  Most numerous were Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs and Yellow Wagtails with one or two Northern Wheatears and Pied Flycatchers but we know from past experience that all sorts of rarities can and do turn up here at this time of year.  We will be back for another look very soon.  A Black-winged Kite here was reasonably approachable.

Northern Wheatear

The water level at Lagoa dos Salgados was lower than we would have liked but still there were impressive numbers of birds.  Notable were a Marsh Harrier, an Osprey, a Black-winged Kite, at least four different Bluethroats, a Little Bittern, several Western Swamphens and what appeared to be a thunbergi-type Yellow Wagtail.  Waders included Little Stint, Bar-tailed & Black-tailed Godwits, Common Snipe and Wood Sandpiper.  We searched through hundreds of gulls without finding anything other than fuscus, michahellis and ridibundus.  Glossy Ibises were especially numerous and on our first visit we estimated that there might have been as many as 1,000.  We managed to read colour-rings on several of them, which identified their origins as breeding sites near Sevilla and Huelva in Andalucia.  Two colour-ringed Spoonbills had travelled further – one from France and one from the Netherlands.

 Common Snipe

 Lagoa dos Salgados

Glossy Ibis

Both of our trips to Sagres produced reasonable numbers of raptors and importantly there were good, close views of many of them.  Most numerous were Black Kites (31 on the first visit, slightly fewer the second time).  Also seen were Egyptian Vultures, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles, Honey-buzzards, Common Kestrels, a Sparrowhawk, a Goshawk and a Peregrine Falcon.  Two Black Storks came close overhead.  We saw just a single Little Bustard and a couple of Red-billed Choughs, while migrants included a Wryneck, several juvenile Woodchat Shrikes, Common Redstarts, both Pied & Spotted Flycatchers, Whinchats and Northern Wheatears.

 Egyptian Vulture

 Black Stork

Little Bustard

So, not a bad start (for us) to the autumn migration period and still more than enough places to visit. 
 

Back for the autumn migration

It’s great to be back in the Algarve!  The months of June, July and August in the UK didn’t seem to include summer but now at last we’re warm again.

It’s also good to be back in Tavira - nearly all of the guide books describe it as the most attractive town in the Algarve and we wouldn’t disagree with that.

The Gilão River in the centre of Tavira

Already we’ve spent a few hours checking out nearby areas of the Ria Formosa and it’s wonderful to have this huge wetland virtually on our doorstep.  Those saltpans around Tavira and Santa Luzia that aren’t being used to produce salt are currently attracting hundreds of birds: Greater Flamingos, Grey Herons, Little Egrets, Spoonbills, more than 20 wader species, at least five different gulls as well as various ducks. 

Santa Luzia saltpans

September and October are months when we can expect a few rarities to show up amongst the huge numbers of migrant birds that pour in here and already there have been a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers further west at Lagoa dos Salgados.  It can’t be denied that rarities add a bit of spice to our birding but there’s a great deal of interest and pleasure to be had from watching almost any birds especially those waders!

 We hope to share photographs here in the coming weeks of at least one or two rarities but in the meantime here are a few taken this week just down the road in the area we like to think of as “our office”.

 Juvenile Greater Flamingo

 Black-tailed Godwit

 Ruff

 First-winter Slender-billed Gull

 Common Redshank

Hoopoe

The Birding Week

Two trips to the Castro Verde area this past week have demonstrated again how much more difficult it can be at this time of year to find even those species which we think of as reasonably common there. Sure we’ve seen Great and Little Bustards, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Griffon Vultures, Short-toed Eagles, Calandra Larks, Lesser Kestrels and plenty more but for some of them we’ve really had to work hard! On one visit we had great views of a juvenile Black Vulture but our best bird was probably a Rüppell’s Vulture. We say ‘probably’ because, in all honesty, we couldn’t be 100% sure of the identification; we both saw it briefly and came to the same conclusion but the bird quickly got mixed up in a flock of about 50 Griffons and was soon no more than a silhouette disappearing into the distance.

We’ve also spent a day around Ludo and Quinta do Lago where Little Bitterns, Purple Swamp-hens and Black-crowned Night Herons continue to be among the most popular birds. We had so many sightings of Little Bitterns it was difficult to come to any conclusion about the actual number of individuals that were present. We were also pleased to see both a Black-winged Kite and a Booted Eagle in an area where we have regularly seen them in the past and where we hope they will now remain through the autumn and winter.

Quinta do Lago - the familiar view from the hide

Around the Tavira area, we have been keeping an eye on the saltpans and adjacent areas. As well as Greater Flamingos, Spoonbills and increasing numbers of gulls and waders, there are now a few passerine migrants to be found, including Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, Northern Wheatears, Chiffchaffs and Tawny Pipits. There are many Red-rumped Swallows and House Martins in evidence currently and we are seeing plenty of Kingfishers. The increasing number of Stone-curlews probably explains why we couldn’t find any in the Alentejo!

Adult Greater Flamingos...

...and a juvenile

Black-winged Stilt

Stone-curlew

Black-headed Gull

Today, for a change, we crossed the border into Spain and met up with friends, Stephen and Julie, for a look around the Marismas de Isla Cristina. The birds there were much the same selection that we would probably have seen here in the Algarve but it was nice to have a change of scene. We also looked in at El Pintado Mill Ecomuseum, one of more than a hundred tidal mills that were constructed in Spain and Portugal in the second half of the 13th century and were an early example of the use of renewal energy. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re in the area.

El Pintado Mill Ecomuseum

Rain in Tavira

Back in Tavira, it was disappointing that our first morning's birding was interrupted by rain. As if we hadn't seen enough rain in the UK these last few weeks. That's definitely not what we came back for! Thankfully, the difference here is that even when it's wet, it's still warm.

Tavira saltpans

We managed a couple of hours around the town during which we saw about 50 species, the majority of them wetland birds either on the saltpans or tidal channels of the Ria Formosa. On cultivated land adjacent to the saltpans, there were two or three Northern Wheatears and nearby we found an Iberian Grey Shrike.

Curlew Sandpiper

There are lots and lots of Greater Flamingos here now and a good proportion of them are juveniles. As usual, it was no time at all before we were reading their colour-rings. Although we occasionally see Flamingos that have been ringed in France or Italy, most of those we have reported have originated in Spain, particularly Laguna de Fuente de Piedra near Malaga. Not surprisingly, there were also a couple of colour-ringed individuals among the Audouin's Gulls. Almost certainly they will have come from the Ebro Delta.

Greater Flamingo

Audouin's Gull

This was a second outing for the newly acquired Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-100. Not too many opportunities to really test it but we're reasonably pleased with it so far.

Sunday Morning

A four-hour walk around the local saltpans certainly gave us an appetite for Sunday lunch but it provided no real surprises among the birds seen. A Kingfisher was probably the least expected among about 45 species recorded. A temperature of no more than 22°C and a slight breeze made for a pleasant morning.

Black-winged Stilt

Pied Avocet

There’s clearly been some breeding success for Kentish Plovers, Black-winged Stilts and Avocets and we saw at least one juvenile Common Redshank but quite a few Avocets in particular do appear to have failed and we could find no Little Tern chicks at all. Ominously, more Yellow-legged Gulls have nested than we have seen in previous years and it may well be that there has been an increased level of predation on eggs and young birds.

Yellow-legged Gull

Other waders included about 100 Black-tailed Godwits, plus a few Dunlin, Curlew Sandpipers, Oystercatchers and a Grey Plover. On the adjacent tidal area there were more Oystercatchers and a few Bar-tailed Godwits, Turnstones, Whimbrels and Curlews. Greater Flamingos continue to increase in number and we found a couple of Spoonbills hiding amongst them.

Greater Flamingos

A flock of about 25 Audouin’s Gulls included a colour-ringed bird that we had seen in almost the same place two years ago. It was ringed in the Ebro Delta in Spain in 2002. Completing the gulls were a few Black-heads and a couple of Meds. Several times recently we have seen two Slender-billed Gulls but there was no sign of them this morning.

Audouin's Gulls

Mediterranean Gulls

The Week in Pictures

We've been busy around Tavira this week where there has been plenty to keep us occupied:

Eurasian Griffons passed over Tavira this week, presumably heading for Tarifa. About 150 were counted on Sunday.

At least three Water Pipits have been regular at Pedras d'el Rei.

Meadow Pipits are now very numerous - but still smart little birds and quite variable in plumage.

Always popular and, in spite of what some of the books say, still quite vocal in November.

Greater Flamingos - hard to ignore.

Bar-tailed Godwit - one of at least 21 wader species currently around Tavira.

Sometimes even long-legged Flamingos get out of their depth!

Common Greenshank - always one of our favourites!

When not chasing off Little Egrets, this hybrid Western Reef x Little Egret regularly poses for photographs - tight-rope walking a speciality!

Stone-curlews are not too hard to see - if you know where to look!

Six gull species are here now and can sometimes be seen all in one place. Just two on this photograph.

Lesser Black-backed Gull - one of the most common species around here in winter.