Close...but no cigar!

Yesterday we were in the Algarve to see the start of 2015 and we enjoyed an excellent day’s birding as we attempted to beat our previous best New Year’s Day species total.  That record was set in 2010 when we managed to find 106 species during a day spent mostly at Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Castro Marim and Tavira.

This is not the sort of birding that we usually do; mostly we prefer a more relaxed approach, but once in a while we like to demonstrate just how good birding in the Algarve can be in ‘winter’.  It’s not about getting the year list off to a good start, either - we don’t keep a year list - it’s just a bit of fun!

The weather can make a huge difference to the outcome of days like this and we could hardly have wished for better.  Admittedly it was cold when we left home at 6.45am and there was frost on the ground when we arrived at Ludo but we didn’t see a cloud all day and later the temperature reached a toasty 17ºC.

Our plan had been to follow more or less the same route that had brought reasonable success in 2010 but then came a remarkable report of five species of hirundines being seen at Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura on New Year’s Eve.  Hirundines are pretty scarce here currently.  In fact we have seen only Crag Martins in recent weeks.  Surely we couldn’t resist the possibility of five species that would be a substantial boost to our total. 

And so it was that after spending most of the morning at Ludo, Quinta do Lago and Praia de Faro, instead of heading back east, we decided to go further west to Vilamoura.  This ruled out any chance that we might have time to go to Castro Marim, which is actually one of our favourite sites; there were a couple of species at least that we might have found there that we were now unlikely to see.  Still, we reckoned, Vilamoura and the hirundines were a better bet.

As it turned out, we did see species at Vilamoura that we probably wouldn’t have seen elsewhere, notably Penduline Tit and Ferruginous Duck, but we didn’t see any hirundines whatsoever!  With the benefit of hindsight, the time spent driving there and the time that it took to walk to the further of the two hides might perhaps have been better spent elsewhere.  Maybe we might have found some of those species that we think of as being common but which simply don’t put in an appearance on days like this when you particularly want them.  We’re talking here about the likes of Linnet, Teal, Golden Plover, Iberian Grey Shrike and Stone-curlew all of which we have seen in recent days but failed to find yesterday. 

After leaving Vilamoura we visited several of our favourite sites close to Olhão and then finished the day around Santa Luzia and Tavira where we knew we could easily and quickly find Audouin’s Gull, Slender-billed Gull, Bluethroat, Black-necked Grebe, Greenshank and Red-legged Partridge but wrongly thought we would find Stone-curlew.

We finished the day having seen 105 species, just one short of our record.  We might have stayed out longer and looked for a Barn Owl or even an Eagle Owl but we reckoned that if we could be out all day and not see a Linnet, the chances of seeing another owl were probably slim!  And, anyway, we weren’t in a competition, we were just out enjoying ourselves.

The highlight of our day was finding a flock of 10 Brent Geese in the Ria Formosa.  This species is a rarity here and it was the first time we had seen them in the Algarve. 

It would be nice to think that one year we might improve on our record from 2010.  There are probably about 30 more species here in the Eastern Algarve that we might have seen, some of which would have been easy given another couple of hours.  The main limiting factor on New Year’s Day is the extent of territory that can reasonably be covered in the relatively short hours of available daylight.  The key, therefore, is in the planning and perhaps also in not allowing yourself to be diverted from the plan in the hope of seeing hirundines at Vilamoura! 

Over the past few years we’ve been lucky enough to spend New Year’s Day birding in Costa Rica, Cuba, South Africa, Texas, Arizona, Florida and California but on a beautiful day like yesterday the Algarve stands comparison with any of these.

Big Day

After five consecutive days of cloudy, gloomy weather with a lot of rain, yesterday was an improvement…of sorts. We did at last see the sun but only for an hour or so late morning. In fact once the fog had cleared it was pleasantly warm for a while. And then the clouds returned and by mid-afternoon it was almost dark and once again pouring with rain. Not a great day for birding!

However, it being the first day of a new birding year we went out early, before we knew how the weather was going to be, to see as many bird species as we could during the day. We started by driving to Ludo Farm where we arrived at 8.00am. Visibility was poor, we couldn’t even see the planes taking off from nearby Faro airport; finding birds wasn’t easy. As we set off for what was going to be a four-hour walk, Cetti’s Warblers were calling, a Great Spotted Woodpecker was drumming and a couple of Penduline Tits showed, but we decided not to worry too much about the smaller birds for the time being and instead hope for an improvement in the weather that would make them easier to see later on.

By the time we reached Lago do São Lourenço we had seen most of the expected duck species and we soon added Red-crested Pochard, Tufted Duck and Greater Scaup to the list, the last of these a bonus that we hadn’t expected. A single Glossy Ibis eventually made a brief appearance but there was no such co-operation from the Little Bittern that we had hoped for.

The walk back to the car produced all the wader, gull and tern species that we expected here. Weather-wise this was the best part of the day and whereas earlier we had seen only one or two other people, there were now quite a few walkers and joggers along the trail. In spite of this activity we found plenty of Serins, Goldfinches, Greenfinches, Common Waxbills, a couple of Corn Buntings and a Bluethroat as we headed back. Raptors were also flying: Marsh Harrier, Kestrel, Common Buzzard and Booted Eagle were added to our list.

Before leaving Ludo we had three species to look for that we knew we wouldn’t find elsewhere: Firecrest, Short-toed Treecreeper and Crested Tit. We had parked the car at the edge of woodland, it was just a question of how much time we could afford to spend. In the event we settled for two out of three, gave up on Crested Tit and at 12.20pm set off to Castro Marim with our species total standing at 85.

After days of rain we needed our wellies for the trail around the saltpans at Cerro do Bufo. We planned to spend no more than a couple of hours here and we had a list of target species most of which we found without difficulty. Mostly these were birds that were exactly in places where we have seen them before: Greylag Goose, Shelduck, Golden Plover, Black Redstart, Southern Grey Shrike, Ruff, Audouin’s Gull. We were let down by the Peregrine Falcon that for once wasn’t sitting on the fencepost that we have seen it on at least six times; we simply didn’t reach the point on the trail from which we could have seen the flock of Black-necked Grebes. By 3.00pm it was pretty gloomy but a few hirundines were flying, including a single House Martin as well as the expected Barn Swallows and Crag Martin.

Next, as the weather deteriorated further, we wasted 45 minutes looking in vain for Little Bustards and Lesser Short-toed Larks. By now it was raining and very little was flying. There was time for one more stop before we returned to Tavira but not surprisingly there was no sign of a Little Tern.

In Tavira we went first to the quarry but it was now so gloomy we could barely see the rocks let alone the resident Blue Rock Thrush. We hoped for a Grey Wagtail here but that, too, was missing. We checked a Barn Owl roost-site but it was unoccupied. We were tempted to give up and go home. But no, there were two species of which we remained confident and both Slender-billed Gull and Northern Gannet were duly added to bring our total for the day to 106 (plus Feral Pigeon, if you will).

As always happens on these so-called “Big Days” we missed seeing several species that we would normally expect to find without even trying. For instance, we’ve seen Grey Wagtail in the town centre this morning and Dartford Warblers are fairly widespread and usually pop up somewhere. However, the weather was the important factor that limited our New Year’s Day total and given different conditions we would hope to see maybe 115 or more. Maybe next year!

We got wet and muddy and had some fun along the way but once a year is enough for this kind of birding. Now we’re back to actually looking at the birds, not just ticking them…