Of particular interest at Santa Luzia has been the presumed hybrid E. garzetta x gularis now so easy to see and photograph as it poses on fences and posts that we refer to it as 'Hollywood Egret'. It feeds regularly in the same channel and defends it against all comers. Photographs show clearly that it is the same bird that has been there for at least the last two years and we hope soon to be able to compare our images with those taken by Ray Tipper going back ten years.
Photograph from November 2008
The same bird on the same post - December 2010.
Flight shot, December 2010
Another photo from last week.This morning's visit to Ludo and Quinta do Lago was remarkable first of all for the amazing shorts and t-shirt weather - a clear sky and a temperature that reached at least 21° C . A total of more than 80 species included two Glossy Ibises, at least one Osprey, four or more Booted Eagles and two Black-winged Kites. We also saw one of the Sacred Ibises that seems to have made the Algarve its home, but for June the day's highlights were the three different Wrynecks that punctuated our walk. Together with several Great Spotted Woodpeckers and an Iberian Green Woodpecker they were enough to make the day for any 'piciphile' - and why not?
2 comments:
Sorry to hear you have been having problems but welcome back and I hope they are all behind you now.
Your recent post solved a mystery for me as I observed the hybrid during a recent visit to Santa Luzia and struggled to identify it as it didn't properly match any of the birds in my book and as a bit of a novice the concept of hybrids was not even on my radar. Many thanks and keep up the good work.
www.santaluzia-portugal.blogspot.com
Glad to have been of help, Stewart. There's more about the hybrid egrets in an earlier post to our blog in March this year.
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