Magpies

How well do you know your magpies?  The three photographs below show three different birds; they were taken on three different continents.  Can you identify them?  We can’t say that they are three different species…but they might be!  Even those who identify birds by examining their DNA don’t seem to have reached a conclusion, so what chance for us?  Maybe you can at least suggest where each photograph was taken.

Here is another magpie.  This one’s easy - it’s obviously a Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli, which occurs only in California and which it seems everyone agrees is a distinct species.  Yellow-billed Magpies have declined in recent years with 50% of the population reportedly killed by West Nile virus between 2004 and 2006.

Not all magpies are black and white birds with long tails!  Below we have Red-billed Blue Magpie Urocissa erythrorhyncha from Asia, photographed in China and an Iberian Magpie Cyanopica cooki or perhaps an Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cyanus, photographed in Portugal.  Whether you choose to call the latter an Iberian or an Azure-winged will depend on which taxonomy you’re inclined towards.  We have blogged here on this subject in the past.

And not all black and white birds with a long tail are magpies!  Below is a Magpie Shrike Urolestes melanoleucus, a fairly common bird in savanna-woodland in eastern and southern Africa.  The photograph was taken in Tanzania.  Presumably the English name was given to the bird by a 19th Century European explorer who saw some similarity to the plumage and shape of Pica pica. 

Basket dweller

Cisticola juncidis is a very common species in the Algarve, one that we can expect to come across almost every day.  Although it is one of our smallest birds, not much bigger than a Wren, its aerial displays and distinctive but monotonous ‘dzip…dzip…dzip…’ song makes it hard to miss.  It mainly occurs in open, grassy areas, a habitat that is still plentiful.

But what should we call it?  You can still find field guides that use the English name Fan-tailed Warbler and rather surprisingly that is what you will also see on the BTO website.  It is little wonder then that we come across lots of birders who continue to refer to the bird by what we woud argue is a potentially confusing and therefore out-dated name. 

Surely there should only be one species in the world called Fan-tailed Warbler and that name belongs to Basileuterus lachrymosus, a bird that inhabits Central and North America. The counter argument, of course, is that most birders in Europe aren’t even aware of this New World species and that when one is talking about a bird this side of the Atlantic the meaning is obvious, context is everything.  

Whatever your view, it does surely seem more normal these days to use the name Zitting Cisticola.  Certainly, that’s what you will find in most modern books and recent field guides.  It is the name adopted by all of the recognised authorities, BirdLife, IOC, BOU, etc, etc.  and with roughly 50 other species in the genus Cisticola all having Cisticola as part of their English name, it does seem sensible that C. juncidis should conform.

We have a feeling that at least some people cling to Fan-tailed Warbler and hesitate to adopt the more logical name simply because they’re not comfortable saying Zitting Cisticola, they’re not quite sure how to pronounce it.  It’s hard not to have a little sympathy with that.  Someone even suggested to us that it sounded too much like a skin complaint! 

We tend to refer to the bird as a ‘sis-TIC-ola’ and this is the pronunciation favoured by Wikipedia and others.  However, it’s not hard to find alternative guidance and another example has just come to our attention, in the recently published Latin for Bird Lovers by Roger Lederer and Carol Burr.  In this we find ‘sis-ti-KO-la’ as the suggested way to say it.  It certainly trips off the tongue more easily than ‘sis-TIC-ola’ perhaps because it brings to mind that well-known carbonated soft drink!

Our conclusion would be that both ‘sis-TIC-ola’ and ‘sis-ti-KO-la’ are acceptable pronunciations but surely it is time we abandoned Fan-tailed Warbler.

The ‘Zitting’ part of the name of course refers to the birds’ song.  It follows other members of the genus that have similar names descriptive of their vocalisations: Bubbling, Chattering, Churring, Chirping, Croaking, Piping, Rattling, Siffling, Singing, Tinkling, Trilling, Wailing, Whistling and Winding are all names given to cisticolas!  The word cisticola apparently derives from cista, a woven basket and colo, meaning to dwell and refers to the birds’ basket-shaped nests.

We say that there are ‘roughly 50 other species in the genus’ because almost inevitably there isn’t taxonomic unanimity.  For the same reason, we should also say that there about 17 or 18 subspecies of Zitting Cisticola, which is the most widely distributed of the genus, occurring in southern Europe, Africa, southern Asia and northern Australia.  Although there has been a northward expansion of the species range in Europe, they are susceptible to hard winters and there have been only a handful of records in Britain.

Colourful Quartet

Our recent visit to the Castro Verde area produced most but not all of the regular species that visitors ask to see.  We didn’t miss many but unfortunately, as the season progresses some species become more difficult to find.  Birds that only a few weeks ago were singing and displaying, defending a territory or trying to attract a mate are now feeding young and trying hard not to draw attention to themselves or their offspring.  At the same time, the grass and other vegetation has grown taller and there are plenty of places to hide away.  It makes our task much harder!

Fortunately, in the same area where those uncooperative Little Bustards are lurking and where the Black-winged Kites have taken their young out of sight, there are four much more easily seen, brightly coloured species that will, at least for a few minutes, brighten anyone’s day.

Our experience is that Hoopoe, European Roller, European Bee-eater and Common Kingfisher are among the most popular birds that we find for our visitors.  Maybe it’s because of their flashy plumage or perhaps simply because they’re all instantly recognisable!

Each of these four species is the only representative of its family to occur in Western Europe other than as a vagrant but they are clearly related to each other and have much in common.  Have you noticed how they always appear bunched together in your checklist between the swifts and the woodpeckers?  And it’s not unusual to see them sharing a page in a field guide!

A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe (Peterson, Mountfort & Hollom) 1954

All four of them nest in cavities; Hoopoes and Rollers like to nest in holes in trees but most of the Rollers we see nest in artificially provided sites and Hoopoes also will occasionally take to nest boxes; Bee-eaters and Kingfishers on the other hand usually excavate a hole in a vertical bank and Bee-eaters will also use a hole in sloping or even flat ground.

We tend to think of Rollers and Bee-eaters as migrants and Hoopoes and Kingfishers as resident species but that really isn’t the whole story.  It’s true that Rollers and Bee-eaters do spend only the few months of the breeding season in Portugal before heading south to winter in Africa but Hoopoes and Kingfishers also make seasonal movements.  Of course, these movements are less obvious as they don’t involve the whole population; many Hoopoes do leave us during the winter but always some remain.  On the other hand, the number of Kingfishers in the Algarve increases in the autumn as birds arrive from further north and they are commonly seen from September through to February.  

If you would like to see all four of these birds during one visit to the Algarve, make sure to plan your trip between late April and August.  Also bear in mind that although Rollers can sometimes be seen as migrants in the Algarve, mainly in the west and in August, they do not breed here and a trip to the Alentejo will usually be necessary to be sure of finding them.

Hot Summer Days

We don’t expect to have much rain at this time of the year.  The average amount for the month of June here in Tavira is only about 8mm.  There was a brief shower a few nights ago but any trace of it was gone by morning and many people won’t even have noticed it.

Recently, temperatures have been rising to around 25ºC most days but the forecast shows an expected high at the weekend of a toasty 32º.  Everywhere the land looks baked and parched, a situation that is unlikely to change until well into September at the earliest.

If you’re a House Martin wanting mud for your nest, it’s definitely not much fun!  Mud is in short supply!  Of course, the breeding season for House Martins started early here; many birds were back in February and some didn’t leave at all, managing to find enough insect food in the Algarve through the ‘winter months’.  By now most will have raised at least one brood if not two.  But still there are birds that are busy collecting mud.  Probably they are repairing nests rather than building new ones from scratch, but who knows?

We always enjoy watching and photographing birds that are attracted to fresh water, whether they are collecting mud or just drinking and bathing.  Migration seasons give more chance for something unusual to show up but even now there can be a good selection of species.  The common seed-eating finches, Serins, Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Linnets, are the most regular but, as well as the House Martins and an occasional Barn Swallow, we have had Spotless Starlings, Blackbirds, House Sparrows, Collared Doves, Azure-winged Magpies and Yellow Wagtails.

It’s been both enjoyable and frustrating to sit watching these birds and at the same time listen to Nightingale, Blackcap, Cetti’s Warbler, Reed Warbler and Common Waxbill, all of them just a few metres away but none showing any inclination to come out for a bath and a photo session!

We haven’t been spending all our time cooped up in the car taking photographs - for one thing, it’s far too hot!  We’ve also spent time in the Castro Verde area watching Rollers, Lesser Kestrels, Collared Pratincoles and more, many of them feeding young.  And yesterday we helped with the monthly count of the birds on the Castro Marim Reserve, where the highlights as far as numbers are concerned were 1,200 Greater Flamingos, 780 Black-tailed Godwits, 147 Slender-billed Gulls, 116 Shelducks, 212 Black-winged Stilts and 175 Avocets.  As well as counting, we managed to read quite a number of colour-rings, mostly on Spoonbills and Audouin’s Gulls.

Here Comes Summer

Even at the end of May there are still some waders to be found in the Ria Formosa and at Castro Marim, mostly Dunlin and Sanderling but also Knot, Oystercatcher and Bar-tailed Godwit.  However, for some time now our attention has been not so much on passage migrants as on the local breeding birds.

Dunlin

Species such as European Bee-eater, Little Bustard, Collared Pratincole, Iberian Grey Shrike and Spectacled Warbler have been in demand as usual and all have been easily viewable even from the car.  We have found Little Bitterns at two sites in the Eastern Algarve, close to Castro Marim and nearby there have also been Audouin’s Gulls, Great Spotted Cuckoos, Glossy Ibises and Stone-curlews.  In the same area, there have been regular sightings of Montagu’s Harriers and Marsh Harriers and occasionally a Short-toed Eagle.

Spectacled Warbler

 Great Spotted Cuckoo

Audouin's Gull

Inevitably, we have spent quite a lot of time looking for the scarcer and less easily found species and the last week or so has seen us earn the gratitude of visitors for whom Iberian Chiffchaff, White-rumped Swift and Western Orphean Warbler have been ‘lifers’.  This has taken us inland to areas where we have been able to enjoy the song of countless Nightingales and Blackcaps and often Woodlarks and Golden Orioles.  The White-rumped Swifts have been difficult and so far we have found them at only one of the five sites we have been to where they have bred in previous years.

Non-breeding birds still here include more than 600 Greater Flamingos, plus a handful of Caspian Terns and Slender-billed Gulls.  Once again, there was a Lesser Flamingo recently amongst the Greaters.

Caspian Tern

 Slender-billed Gull

Of course, we have also been making frequent trips to the Baixo Alentejo where Great Bustard, Little Bustard, Spanish Imperial Eagle, Short-toed Eagle, Montagu’s Harrier, Griffon Vulture, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Roller, Lesser Kestrel, Collared Pratincole, Great Spotted Cuckoo and Calandra Lark have all been seen on virtually every visit.  Golden Eagle, Bonelli’s Eagle and Gull-billed Tern have also been fairly reliable. 

Collared Pratincole

We’ve been across the border to Doñana only once recently.  We found large areas of the National Park to be completely dry and it certainly wasn’t at its best.  It was good to see plenty of people visiting the Dehesa de Abajo (where Red-knobbed Coots seem now to be regular) but in contrast we were the only visitors at the JAV and so the only ones to enjoy seeing a Spanish Imperial Eagle pass low overhead!  Even so, we probably enjoyed the Purple Herons as much as any of the birds we saw.

Purple Heron

Summer has now arrived; temperatures are regularly reaching 26ºC and higher and there are more and more people here.  It will soon be time for us to retreat to the UK!

Arizona

The Avian Adventures tour in Arizona during the first two weeks of May was a great success and very enjoyable as always.  In addition to visiting many of the popular birding sites in the south-east of the state, we also went north to Sedona and the Grand Canyon, which gave the opportunity to see a few additional bird species and some spectacular scenery.

Grand Canyon

 California Condor

Although our main focus throughout the tour was obviously on the birds, there was plenty of interest in the mammals, reptiles, butterflies, plants and just about everything else.  As usual, we also included a short stop in Tombstone to see the OK Corral, Boot Hill, etc.

 Red-naped Sapsucker

 Yarrow's Spiny Lizard

 Texas Horned Lizard

Mourning Cloak

Burrowing Owl

More than 200 bird species were recorded by the group including seven species of owls.  Although it wasn’t a particularly good year for hummingbirds, we did have good views of both male and female White-eared Hummingbirds at Beatty’s Guest Ranch in Miller Canyon.

 White-eared Hummingbird

Spotted Owl

Also in Miller Canyon, we saw a female Mexican Spotted Owl on a nest but we were able to see this species much better and closer in Scheelite Canyon.

Without doubt, Arizona is one of our favourite destinations and another visit (Peter's 22nd!) is already being planned.  If you haven't been there, you're missing a treat!

More Colour-rings

Although the numbers of gulls and other birds wintering in the Algarve have now reduced considerably, we’ve still managed during the last couple of weeks to read several interesting colour-rings.

There are Greater Flamingos here all the time.  Rings that we have seen recently confirm what we already know about their origin - most come from colonies in Spain and France.  Two that we saw at Castro Marim had both been ringed in July 2009 in Spain, at Laguna de Fuente de Piedra, near Malaga; one of them we had seen before in Tavira in November 2010 and in the Santa Luzia saltpans in June 2011; the other had been seen several times at Lagoa dos Salgados and Ria de Alvor.

There are very few Mediterranean Gulls here now so it was pleasing to find one at Olhão that had a colour-ring.  It had been ringed in France in June 2013 at Barbâtre, Polder de Sebastopol, Vendée, a site from which we have had several other birds here in the past.

The same day, also at Olhão, there was a Lesser Black-backed Gull that had been ringed in July 2011 at Rauna, Farsund, Vest-Agder in Norway.  It seems that this bird has spent quite a lot of its life around the harbour in Málaga and in fact was there only a month or so ago.

Slender-billed Gulls

Most of the ringed Slender-billed Gulls that we see have originated in Spain, with the majority coming from Veta La Palma in the province of Sevilla.  One of last week’s birds was ringed in 2001, making it the oldest ringed bird of this species that we have seen.

Slender-billed Gulls

We have reported the ring details of countless Audouin’s Gull over the last few years and most have originated from the Ebro Delta in Spain.  However, increasingly we are seeing birds with blue rings which we know straightaway come from the colony on the Ilha da Barreta, here in the Algarve.  We have seen two of these recently in Tavira, both of them birds hatched in 2012.

Using a telescope, reading the numbers and letters on the rings of flamingos, gulls and Spoonbills is child’s play compared with sorting out the details of multiple colour-rings on small waders.  However, last Sunday, we managed to get photographs of two Sanderlings at Olhão that enabled them to be identified.  The photographs were taken from quite a distance using a Panasonic Lumix FZ100 and they were pretty poor but sufficient to ascertain that one of them had been ringed in Iceland in May 2011 and the other in Greenland in June 2010.  Both birds had been reported previously during the winter in the Olhão area and the Icelandic bird was also seen there in January 2012.

Sanderlings - spot the rings!

Finally, we were delighted to hear that Common Redshank H19 has made it back to The Netherlands after its (her) fourth winter in the Santa Luzia saltpans.  We hope that she will attract a mate this year!