Projecto Arenaria 2011/12

Projecto Arenaria (the ‘Turnstone Project’) is a survey of non-estuarine coastal birds here in Portugal that is similar to the Winter Shorebird Count carried out in the UK in 1984/85 by the British Trust for Ornithology. Living at the time in Staffordshire, about as far from the coast as you can be in the UK, Peter was an unlikely volunteer to participate in that survey but that’s what happened with round trips of 300 miles being made to count shorebirds along the coast of North Wales. Madness!

Arenaria began in 2009/10 so this is its third year. Counts have to be made between 1st December and 31st January, a period for most of which we were away in Ethiopia, the UK and the USA, so we weren’t expecting to take part this time. However, we returned last Tuesday to find that there was a stretch of coast not too far away that still hadn’t been surveyed.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

So this morning we walked along the beach from Praia Verde to Cacela Velha and back. It was another beautiful morning with a clear blue sky and temperatures that at times exceeded the forecast 16°C. A three-hour walk in the sun was exactly what we needed! As part of the survey, we counted not just the birds but also the people and any dogs that weren’t on a leash and as it was Saturday there were plenty of both.

By far and away the most numerous bird species was Lesser Black-backed Gull totalling just over 500. There were only a handful of Yellow-legged Gulls and a single Slender-billed. A few Sandwich Terns flew by, Northern Gannets were diving off-shore and just off the beach there was a single Razorbill. Waders were represented only by Kentish Plovers and Sanderlings and there were few of either.

Slender-billed Gull

Sanderling

Single Spoonbill and Cormorant flew over but probably the only real surprise was when a flock of 22 Common Pochards passed over, heading east to and from who knows where.

Will our data be of any use to anyone? Well, of course we hope so but more importantly we enjoyed collecting it and what’s more we didn’t have to drive 300 miles to do it!

On Our Travels...

We’re in the UK for a few days, preparing for an Avian Adventures tour in Ethiopia. There were long range forecasts of freezing weather here, so it’s a relief that it’s actually quite mild currently with temperatures up to 12°C. It’s still a bit of a shock to the system, though, for 'southern European softies' like us and we’re definitely hoping for some African sun next week. At the same time, we’re packing plenty of warm clothes for our days in the mountains.

Earlier this week we enjoyed what will be our last day this year of birding and guiding in the Algarve. An excellent day was spent around Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Olhão, Santa Luzia and Tavira recording a total of more than 90 species.

Slender-billed Gull

Highlights included at least 7 Booted Eagles, 2 Black-winged Kites, an Osprey, a Bluethroat, Slender-billed & Audouin’s Gulls, 23 wader species, more than 60 Stone-curlews, 3 Caspian Terns, a Blue Rock Thrush, 3 Black-necked Grebes and, of course, the always popular Purple Swamp-hens. Also notable for us were a Pied Wagtail, a sub-species that isn’t particularly common in the Algarve, and a Spanish colour-ringed Spoonbill that we had seen before in exactly the same place two years ago.

Purple Swamp-hen

Black-tailed Godwit

Although we're obviously looking forward to our travels, it's been a bit of a wrench leaving the Algarve where the birding can be so good at any time of the year and where we really enjoy spending what passes for winter.

Audouin's Gulls

Green Sandpiper

Look out for some photographs from Ethiopia in about three weeks time!

Slightly Cooler Birding

This week we’ve had only one day in the Castro Verde area; it was another day when finding birds was hard work but which did at least produce reasonable numbers and decent views of both Great and Little Bustards and we saw Spanish Imperial Eagle and Golden Eagle. The Golden Eagle, seen from the roadside through the telescope, perched high on a crag, was probably the day’s highlight.

Otherwise we have been covering our regular sites in the Eastern Algarve: Tavira, Santa Luzia, Ludo and Quinta do Lago. What a pity that Castro Marim is no longer among the places we regularly visit! For the time being, we have also now added to our itinerary the watercress beds near Almancil where we recently found a Pectoral Sandpiper. Could lightning possibly strike twice in the same place?

On both Thursday and Friday we recorded more than 90 species during what were fairly gentle birding days. Although there are signs now that the weather may be about to change (cooler mornings and evenings and a bit more cloud), temperatures throughout the week have risen to a very pleasant 24º C to add to our enjoyment.

Eurasian Spoonbill - one of three Dutch-ringed birds seen this week in Tavira

There have been no real rarities on show other than a Barnacle Goose which we found at Quinta do Lago. Although this species is officially a rarity in Portugal, it was hard to imagine this individual as anything other than an escape from captivity. But who knows? It had no rings and did seem quite wary. Thankfully, it didn’t spook as easily as the two that were in Tavira last Christmas; those two departed in such a hurry that June missed seeing them completely!

Barnacle Goose among the Eurasian Coots at Quinta do Lago

As we have hardly strayed away from the Ria Formosa, it’s not surprising that wetland birds have predominated – waders (24 species), ducks (10), gulls and terns (8), herons, spoonbills and ibises (7) made up more than half of our species total. Among them, only Sacred Ibis might not have been predicted, although we have now seen the same five birds in the same place on three occasions.

Grey Plover - still a smart-looking bird in winter plumage

Slender-billed Gull - easy to see around Tavira

Black-winged Stilt - numerous but always fun to watch

Northern Shoveler - numbers now building up as they arrive from...the north!

Robins, Bluethroats, Chiffchaffs, Song Thrushes, Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and White Wagtails are amongst the species that have now arrived here in numbers to spend the winter. On the other hand, there are fewer Whinchats and Northern Wheatears to be seen and Yellow Wagtails are in short supply. Two Red-rumped Swallows and a single Sand Martin were the only hirundines recorded.

Raptors have continued to provide plenty of interest down at the Sagres end of the Algarve this week with a Pallid Harrier causing particular excitement, but here in the east we have had to be content with just six species: Booted Eagle, Black-winged Kite, Marsh Harrier, Common Buzzard, Common Kestrel and Peregrine Falcon.

Around the Eastern Algarve

In the last few days there have been reports in the Sagres area of a Lesser Spotted Eagle, a Long-legged Buzzard and a Red-footed Falcon but here in the Eastern Algarve rare birds continue to be in short supply. In spite of visits to Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Olhão, Castro Marim and Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura and almost daily coverage of the Tavira and Santa Luzia saltpans, the best we have found this week has been another Great Egret. Maybe it was the same bird we saw on 24th September at Vilamoura but this one was at Castro Marim and it was only our seventh record in the Algarve.

A juvenile Woodchat Shrike and a feisty Eurasian Jay were the highlights of our final session with the ringing team at Vilamoura on Tuesday. Jays are quite often bad tempered and ready to fight back and so are always handled with a degree of trepidation even by experienced ringers. This one was no exception! Mostly they were catching docile hirundines.

Eurasian Jay

As well as Monarch butterflies and an assortment of dragonflies there was other insect interest at Vilamoura in the form of a Red Palm Weevil and an impressive Death's Head Hawkmoth caterpillar. The weevil is a major pest here in the Algarve (and elsewhere) infesting and eventually killing large numbers of palm trees.

Red Palm Weevil

Death's Head Hawkmoth caterpillar

Hundreds of Spoonbills and Greater Flamingos continue to be a feature in the Tavira/Santa Luzia area. Three colour-ringed Spoonbills found this week originated from the Netherlands. One of them was 15 years old and has regularly been seen spending its winters in the Parc National du Banc d'Arguin in Mauritania. Presumably it will soon be heading in that direction again.

Eurasian Spoonbill

Until quite recently considered a rarity in Portugal, Slender-billed Gulls are now commonly seen and becoming more numerous. About 80 birds are currently to be found at Santa Luzia and there are also plenty in the Cerro do Bufo area of Castro Marim.

Slender-billed Gull

Cerro do Bufo, Castro Marim

This photograph of Cerro do Bufo may look like the first snow of winter but any climate change that may be in progress hasn't yet reached that extreme! No, of course, it's salt - a reminder that September sees the peak of the salt harvest, an activity they say has been going on in these parts for about 2,000 years or so.

Dodging the Showers

A week of rather mixed weather has seen us staying mostly around the Tavira area, taking advantage of the sunny days (or more often half-days) to photograph some of the common birds. It's been exactly as forecast and we have been doing our best to dodge the showers.

Linnet - seldom more than a few seconds at the water.

Meadow Pipit - taking a bath.

European Goldfinch - content with just a drink.

Black Redstart - a spiffy male but a shame about the white wall!

Red Knot - well, more of a grey Knot really!

Bluethroat - this one scolding a cat that had intruded into its territory...

...and now looking pleased to have seen it off!

Common Sandpiper - also seemed to enjoy teasing the cat; hope it doesn't end in tears...

Common Redshank - waders often give the appearance of having only one leg; this bird does actually have only one, but seems to be managing OK.

Black-headed Gull - not only caught with its mouth open but also with its tongue sticking out!

Eurasian Spoonbill - one of the 'rare' unringed birds.

Common Stonechat - hard to resist when they perch like this one.

Slender-billed Gull - once considered a rarity in Portugal but can now be found here most days...

...their distictive feeding action makes them easy to pick out.

Transatlantic Visitors

There's been a flurry of North American waders here in Portugal these last few weeks. It started with a Pectoral Sandpiper on the last day of August and then in September there was a Buff-breasted Sandpiper at Lagoa dos Salgados, two Spotted Sandpipers (Vilamoura and Alcochete) and an Upland Sandpiper (Santa Luzia). Already this month there has been an American Golden Plover (Estuário do Mondego), a Lesser Yellowlegs (near Vila Nova de Gaia), a Buff-breasted Sandpiper (Ria Alvor) and a Greater Yellowlegs (Tavira). Surely it can only be a matter of time now before we get a passerine from across the Atlantic!

The Greater Yellowlegs was reported from the saltmarsh here in Tavira on Sunday morning by John Edge and Clive Viney and after their phone call it took only a few minutes for us to get down there. Unfortunately, although John and Clive were still there when we arrived, the bird had flown and they were trying to re-locate it. Trying to re-locate it is what we have been doing ever since!

So we've had three days when we've spent quite a lot of time around Tavira. That's no hardship at all - the saltpans are full of birds and there are at least twenty species of waders but that does make it difficult to find just one Greater Yellowlegs. All of the regular six gull species that winter here can also now be seen together and as usual we have taken some time out to read and report colour-ring details. In fact, this morning it was possible to read colour-rings on Audouin's and Slender-billed Gulls, Greater Flamingos and Spoonbills, all from the roadside at the edge of town.

Slender-billed Gull

No Greater Yellowlegs yet but this afternoon there was reward for our efforts, in the form of an unusually approachable Black-winged Kite that was perched on a pole in the middle of the saltpans. Sometimes carrying a camera can be a bit of a chore but not today!

Black-winged Kite

Sunday surprise!

We spent almost four hours this afternoon walking round the saltpans at the edge of Tavira. It's a walk we've done many times before and we think we know pretty much which birds to expect...but life is full of surprises.

The first critter that caught our attention wasn't a bird at all but an insect - a carpenter bee Xylocopa violacea. What an impressive beast, both in size and in colour! It's about an inch long and as its scientific name suggests, it has a purplish blue sheen. Each flower that it went to was bent almost double by its weight.

Carpenter Bee

Next we found a Little Ringed Plover, presumably a newly arrived migrant. It's a species we see regularly enough, although not often on the saltpans. It proved to be one of 15 wader species that we saw and might easily have been overlooked amongst the hundreds of Ringed and Kentish Plovers.

Five species of gulls were seen and included just a handful of Audouin's and a single first-winter Slender-billed Gull; the only terns were a couple of Caspians, ducks were few but included four Pintails. We could find only a dozen or so Spoonbills.

Slender-billed Gull

Slender-billed Gull

It was all very pleasant but fairly predictable. And then we came upon a real surprise - two large black birds feeding out in the middle of one of the pans and looking totally out of place - Black Swans! Of course, they really were very much out of place. Native to Australia, but established now as breeding birds in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, these were the first we have seen in Portugal and we have not heard of previous records in the Algarve. Later, we sent an email to alert others to the presence of these 'rarities' but we doubt that there will be crowds arriving to see them. Where they have come from is anyone's guess. Like last autumn's Whooper Swan, they didn't appear to have any rings, so we may never know. It'll be interesting to see how long they stay.

Black Swans

Just Around Tavira

Well, Tuesday turned out to be the last warm, sunny, cloudless day of the week! The weather here has changed significantly during the last few days and although we haven't yet had the really good downpour that most people would welcome, it has now rained on three consecutive days and it is suddenly much cooler.

So we haven't been inclined to go very far this week! In fact all of our birding has been within a mile or so of home and most of it has been from the car. We've still managed to see about 75 species and although the light has mostly been pretty poor there have still been opportunities for photography.

It's well known that to see raptor passage in the Algarve you have to go to the Sagres/Cape St Vincent area and around Tavira we can't compete with the numbers of birds that are regularly seen in the autumn at the western end of the coast. However, in the last few days we have seen eight raptor species here which is not to be sniffed at! Following on from Tuesday's Booted Eagle and Common Buzzard, we have seen Black-winged Kite, Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, Common Kestrel, Peregrine Falcon and Osprey. In fact, we've seen two different Hen Harriers, one of them a 'ringtail', the other the male that is presumably the same bird that has been in the area for a month now.

There are still plenty of gulls here, mostly Lesser Black-backed, Mediterranean and Audouin's. We counted over 100 Audouin's yesterday and managed to read a couple of ring numbers which we have reported. No doubt, like previous ones, they will prove to be from the Ebro Delta in Spain. There are also a few Slender-billed Gulls around town - a rarity in most of Portugal but easily found here in the south-east of the country.

Slender-billed Gull

It's not too difficult at this time of the year to find twenty or more wader species here and we never get tired of photographing them, searching through them for a rarity and simply watching them. Most of them can be found feeding on the saltpans but some species use the saltpans only for roosting at high tide and they're the ones that have so far proved the most difficult to photograph. We're referring in particular to Curlew, Knot, Whimbrel, Oystercatcher and Bar-tailed Godwit. We were fortunate to photograph three of these this afternoon, unfortunate to do so without the benefit of any sunshine!

Bar-tailed Godwits

'Grey' Knot

Eurasian Oystercatcher

Perhaps the most surprising birds found were two Razorbills at the mouth of the river at Quatros Aguas. This is a species that we have previously seen only much further west.

There's been enough rain to make the tracks through the saltpans pretty muddy so it looks as though we might need our wellies if we're going for a much-needed walk tomorrow.

Griffons and Gulls

The weather here remains dry but temperatures are falling and today’s forecast maximum is ‘only’ 21° C. For a few days now a strong wind has been a feature.

Yesterday morning from the window here on the outskirts of Tavira we watched for half an hour or so a group of 15 Griffon Vultures struggling to make headway in the wind. We don’t often see Griffons at this eastern end of the coast but we also saw two last week near Castro Marim. Presumably these are young birds that are gradually and inexpertly finding their way to the Tarifa area for the short crossing to North Africa.


We now have hundreds of gulls on the local saltpans. Six species are involved and it’s not difficult to see them all together. Lesser Black-backs are the most numerous and at the other end of the scale there are just a handful of Slender-billed Gulls.







We were very pleased earlier this year when SPEA announced at last that they would no longer be treating Slender-billed Gull as a rarity requiring a description to be submitted with our records. With an expanding population in Iberia, the species has not been a rarity in Portugal for several years now but it is regular only here in the south-eastern corner of the country. As these decisions are made in far away Lisbon where Slender-billed is hardly if ever seen it has taken time for its true status to be acknowledged. In 2008 we found more than 70 individuals on 23 different dates and we are now seeing them most days.