Tavira and beyond

The weather has been pretty discouraging this week and there was even a day when we didn't go birding! Really - that bad!

Mostly we have been enjoying the wonderful selection of birds on our doorstep here in Tavira but we've also been to Olhão, looking for unusual gulls at the 'docapesca', to Sagres, Cape St Vincent and Martinhal, to Altura, to Fuseta and to the 'top of the Algarve' at Fóia.

Radar, TV, radio and telephone installations on Fóia

In the Cape St Vincent/Sagres area we were pleased to find that there were still plenty of raptors; a Peregrine Falcon, lots of Common Kestrels and Common Buzzards but also ten or more Booted Eagles and at least one Short-toed Eagle. The whole area is full of birds: flocks of Lapwings, Golden Plovers, Skylarks, Corn Buntings, Spotless Starlings, Goldfinches, Linnets and Meadow Pipits; Jackdaws and Choughs; Thekla Larks, Black Redstarts, Blue Rock Thrushes and more.

Short-toed Eagle

We also found Blue Rock Thrush on Fóia but our main target there was its cousin the Ring Ouzel. There were at least half a dozen of them, birds apparently of the central and southern European race, Turdus torquatus alpestris. They were extremely active and difficult to count, chasing each other around from one berry-laden tree to another, as if there weren't enough berries to go around. It was fun to watch but frustrating that, even if there had been enough light, we weren't able to get close enough for a photograph.

Around Tavira and Santa Luzia, we have at least 24 wader species in the saltpans and tidal channels, plus Greater Flamingos, Spoonbills, White Storks and the usual six species of gulls. Among the ducks, we have seen up to seven Common Shelducks; Sandwich Terns are common and one or two Caspian Terns can usually be found. A single Black-necked Grebe seems to have settled in to one particular lagoon and the hybrid Western Reef x Little Egret continues, also very faithful to one favourite channel. Bluethroats and Kingfishers provide regular flashes of colour. Raptors here this week have included a Black-winged Kite and a smart-looking male Hen Harrier.

Little Stint

Common Kingfisher

White Stork

The forecast seems to be for a further period of mixed weather with heavy rain on several days next week. No doubt we'll be doing our best to dodge the showers as usual.

Castro Verde again!

We were in the Castro Verde / Mértola area again yesterday and enjoyed another reasonably successful day in spite of a much later start than we would have liked. Great Bustards, always one of the main targets, now have well-grown young but they can be hard to find and, even after a lot of searching in the usual places, the total number seen was in single figures. Little Bustards are currently even more difficult to see well.

Raptors, on the other hand, were show-offs! Montagu's Harriers, Marsh Harriers, Black Kites, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles, Common Buzzards and Lesser Kestrels would have been hard to miss.

Booted Eagle

Short-toed Eagle

Golden Orioles, Tawny Pipits, Rufous-tailed Scrub-Robins, Collared Pratincoles, Rollers, a single Purple Heron and even Kingfishers and Little Owls were amongst the day's most popular species but, with the temperature around 36 degrees, finding and showing any birds at all had became a bit of a challenge by mid-morning!

Big Day

How many species did you see on 1st January? Like lots of birders all over the world, we were out yesterday engaged in what Americans call a 'Big Day', an attempt to find as many species as possible in a day to get the New Year off to a good start. Last year we found 106 species on the first day - could we do better in 2010?

It was no surprise to start the year off with several Little Owls calling. We can look out of the window here most days and see a Little Owl and probably have three pairs within earshot. Like us, they were up early although at 6.30am it was still dark and we couldn't actually see them. No matter, as we include in our total birds that are only heard, Little Owl was first on the list.

We decided to follow a similar route to last year and so we spent most of the morning in the Ludo Farm/Quinta do Lago area. The diversity of habitats here means that a good range of species can be guaranteed and last year we came away having seen 86 by mid-day. This time we got off to an excellent start with Booted Eagle, Osprey, Black-shouldered Kite, Firecrest, Green Woodpecker, Crested Tit and Short-toed Treecreeper among the first birds seen. Cetti's Warblers were singing and a Great Spotted Woodpecker drummed briefly as we headed past the saltpans towards Lago do São Lourenço. The walk to the lake and back took about four hours and produced most of the expected waders and wildfowl. There were few surprises although Barn Swallows and House Martins were not birds that we had counted on seeing. Disappointing was the absence of Glossy Ibis and Little Bittern, two that we were hoping for. There was no sign either of a Yellow-backed Weaver or Red-crested Pochard. By the time we got back to the car our total had reached 81, slightly fewer than we had hoped.

Black-shouldered Kite on a regular perch

Next we headed back to Tavira where Blue Rock Thrush was our main target but where we also made sure of Stone-curlew and picked up several common species including Kestrel. We also had our biggest surprise of the day - an unseasonal Short-toed Eagle.

Short-toed Eagle

Great Flamingos - seen at Ludo, Tavira and Castro Marim

Then we were off to Castro Marim where Greylag Geese, Black-necked Grebes, Slender-billed Gulls, a Bluethroat, a Marsh Harrier and a Caspian Tern were thankfully all more or less where we expected them to be. We were also pleased to see a flock of about 300 Golden Plovers and then three Spotted Redshanks brought the day's total of wader species to 23 and the over all total to 104.

Caspian Tern

Slender-billed Gull

By now it was late afternoon. There were several species that we knew we could still find if sufficient daylight remained but with so little time available we decided that a return to Tavira for Audouin's Gull, Common Waxbill and Oystercatcher was our best bet. Unfortunately, when we got there, only two of these three targets obliged, Oystercatchers having disappeared to their high tide roost. As darkness fell, we waited along the river for a Night Heron to appear so that we might beat last year's total but it wasn't to be.

So, at the end of the Big Day our total of species recorded was the same as last year at 106...except that we're going to count an extra 1/2 for the 'grey egret' seen in Tavira so that we can claim to be just slightly better birders than we were in 2009!

'Grey Egret' - presumed Western Reef x Little Egret

Windfarms!

June was apoplectic on Tuesday morning when she read the BBC News email. There was a story headlined RSPB calls for more UK wind farms. Our first reaction was that we had somehow lost a week and that it was April Fools Day but no, it was still only 24th March. So what on Earth is going on? Is the RSPB finally coming clean about its business partnership with Scottish & Southern Energy? Is it finally admitting that all the accusations that have been made against it over the past few years are true? This unqualified and enthusiastic endorsement of wind farms is otherwise hard to understand from an organisation that is supposed to be about bird protection. It is difficult not to conclude that the RSPB has been ’bought’. Well, whatever they are being paid will have to offset the loss of subscription income that will surely result. We wonder what Peter Condor would make of it all.

Anyway, yesterday we went to have a look at one of these wind farms. It’s in the Serra do Caldeirão and about two hours drive from here. Of course, we were birding really but our all-day trip through the rolling hills and valleys west of Ameixal inevitably took us to the highest point in the area at Mu (577 m above sea level) where wind turbines are currently still under construction. In fact we sat and had our picnic under the shadow of one of these giants. Not to beat about the bush any longer, WE HATE THEM! But the bandwagon is rolling and, with the help of Europe’s largest wildlife charity and all the other vested interests, looks to be unstoppable, so be prepared for one near you anytime soon. Don't expect to see any change to the climate though!

Otherwise it was a lovely, mostly sunny day with Nightingales singing in the valleys, Bee-eaters hawking over the rivers, Subalpine Warblers skulking in the Cistus scrub, Short-toed Eagles soaring, hirundines gathering mud for nest-building and much much more. A very noticeable feature of the day was the continuous passage of Painted Lady butterflies - thousands of them going by all day.

We took a few photographs...

European Bee-eaters

Following the RSPB's lead, Peter got one fitted to his bird...

Red-rumped Swallow collecting mud

Rock Bunting

Local birding

Since our trip to the Alentejo on Sunday we’ve stayed mainly around Tavira this week. There’s been some photography from our mobile hide (aka the car) and we’ve explored on foot areas not far from here that we’ve previously only driven past.

The photography involved, amongst others, a frustratingly mobile Grey Wagtail made all the more difficult to photograph by an aggressive White Wagtail that would chase it off at regular intervals. This is a familiar scenario that we have watched at the same site on numerous occasions through October and November, presumably involving the same individuals.

Grey Wagtail

Apart from that we have checked on the ‘Grey Egret’ at Santa Luzia which was in its usual place; we’ve looked in on the local Barn Owl at its roost; we’ve seen Redwing (scarce in the Eastern Algarve) and Woodlarks just outside town and we’ve had a Short-toed Eagle fly over the nearby quarry.

We did venture as far as Vila Real do Santo António (we like to call it VRSA) for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon. It’s an unusual town, unique in the Algarve, in that the streets are laid out in a right-angle grid system. If you want shops that sell towels and bed linen, this is the place for you - the town centre is full of them! We did what we had to do and then drove just out of the town to the mouth of the Guadiana River to see whether we could find any Little Terns. Most Little Terns leave Europe in October to spend the winter off the coast of West Africa, some going as far as Ivory Coast and Ghana. However, a few usually remain here alternating between the river mouth and the nearby saltpans at Castro Marim. We counted 12 at Castro Marim on 23rd November but could find only three yesterday on the river. About 100 Oystercatchers were on a sandbank in the middle of the river but, as the Guadiana is the international border, they might have been in Spain!

And wherever we’ve been, no matter what the habitat, we have seen Chiffchaffs, gazillions of Chiffchaffs!