Catching up!

As usual, March, April and May have been busy months for us and we have been left little time for blogging.  Now we are catching up and able to at least share a few photographs from our days out in the Castro Verde area as well as around the Algarve:

Red-crested Pochard - breeding birds seem to have been even more numerous than usual this year, particularly at Castro Marim and at the Lagoa de São Lourenço.

Little Bustard - easy enough to find when they are calling and displaying but after that they disappear!  There is a suggestion now that the population of these birds in the Baixo Alentejo may be at a much lower level than previous estimates.
 

Great Spotted Cuckoo - to find these birds, look for their preferred host species, Common Magpie. Those Magpies that failed to chase away the Cuckoos earlier in the year can now be found feeding their young ones!

Thekla Lark - common enough in the Castro Verde / Mértola area and in the western Algarve, perhaps best separated from the similar Crested Lark by the shape of the bill.

Calandra Lark - a very distinctive and easy to identify lark and one that is easy to see in the Alentejo at most times of the year but especially when they are displaying and singing.

Rock Bunting - in the Algarve, probably most numerous in the hills of Monchique and Caldeirão but this one was less than 15km from Castro Marim in the east.

Eurasian Nuthatch - most often seen (by us) in the woodlands of the Serra do Caldeirão but also regular at Ludo.

Spotted Flycatcher - an uncommon breeding bird in the Algarve but we found this one at what seems to be a regular site where in previous years we have also seen breeding Common Redstarts.

 Crag Martin - we have followed the progress of this easily viewed roadside nest for several weeks.  It's amazing how they manage to stick the nest to vertical walls.

Little Owl - a common enough species but this particular bird is very obliging and usually to be found in this same roadside tree.

 

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker - we mentioned this nest in a previous blog.  It was in the same agave where a pair nested in 2011.  When we last visited, they were feeding young.

Little Ringed Plover - commonly found breeding around reservoirs and along rivers and streams; passage birds are sometimes seen in the Ria Formosa; we call them 'lurps'.

 Greater Short-toed Lark - quite widely distributed but nowhere really numerous.

 Blue Rock Thrush - a recently fledged juvenile that we came across in the Eastern Algarve.

  Stone-curlew - one of a pair breeding in the Ria Formosa.  Habitat loss has resulted in fewer birds around Tavira in recent years.

  Pallid Swift - we always enjoy the challenge of photographing these birds that nest in the trunks of palm trees in the centre of Tavira.

Changing fortunes

The occasional occurrence in the UK of European Bee-eater, Blue Rock Thrush and Woodchat Shrike seems to do little to diminish the popularity of those species with British visitors to Portugal. In spite of being twitchable in Britain they retain a degree of rarity value, they are bright and colourful and they are still crowd-pleasers.

 European Bee-eater

Blue Rock Thrush

On the other hand, increasing numbers in the UK of species such as Little Bittern, Glossy Ibis, Great Egret, Cattle Egret, Black-winged Stilt and Spoonbill mean that these birds no longer feature as highly as they once did on the ‘wanted lists’ of those many birders who arrive here wanting to see ‘something different’.

Little Bittern

This change in the status of bird species does, however, work both ways.  For instance, we still have Turtle Doves in Portugal, maybe fewer than previously but we still see (and hear) them regularly. And we have Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, a species that by all accounts has become difficult to find in many if not most parts of Britain.

Eurasian Turtle Dove

Today was my first day back in the Algarve after three weeks away, part of which was spent leading an Avian Adventures tour in Arizona, more of which later.  While I was away I was alerted to the presence of a Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers’ nest not far from Tavira which might offer the possibility to photograph the birds once they are feeding young.  It was only when I got back that I received precise details of the location and much to my surprise it turned out to be exactly the same site where June and I watched and photographed Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in 2011.  Have they been nesting there regularly in the intervening years, I wonder?  I have to admit that we haven't checked.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (photo from 2011)

As usual, while I was away I missed a rarity here in the Algarve, this one actually in Tavira. Fortunately, this time it was ‘only’ a Red-necked Phalarope so not too much concern.  However, this species is a genuine rarity here requiring reports to the Portuguese Rarities Committee so it’s as well that June managed to photograph it.  A bird photo by June is probably rarer than the bird itself!

Red-necked Phalarope

Having a light meal!

Although it couldn’t be described as common the Blue Rock Thrush is a widely distributed species in the Algarve and is usually not difficult to find.

It is perhaps mainly associated with the sea-cliffs and rocky coastline of the western Algarve but it also occurs elsewhere, breeding in steep-sided, rocky valleys, in quarries, on ruined buildings and on churches and other large, town-centre buildings.

In the quarry

We have been watching several pairs in recent weeks around Tavira and further inland.  In March, we were even able to watch one from our kitchen window as it sang from the roof of a building across the road.

Feeding young

In the centre of Tavira a pair has been seen on the Church of Santa Maria do Castelo.  These birds have been notably inactive during the day but they come alive each evening at around 9.00pm (half an hour after sunset) when the floodlights that illuminate the church are switched on and immediately attract many moths and other flying insects, which are ready-meals for the thrushes.  Although this behaviour and feeding strategy doesn’t seem to have been previously documented for Blue Rock Thrushes, it is not, of course, unusual these days for birds’ lives to be affected by artificial light sources such as street lamps and floodlights, leading to extended feeding hours and for some species extended periods of singing.

At the church (ISO 6400; f/5.6: 1/200 sec)

Church of Santa Maria do Castelo

Another species taking advantage of the abundance of insect prey at the church in Tavira is Red-necked Nightjar.  Twice this week we have seen a bird hawking insects from a high tree-top perch next to the church.  After each aerial sortie it returns to the same perch in the manner of a Spotted Flycatcher and it has used the same perch on successive evenings.

On a ruined building

The floodlighting at the church is clearly making life easier for the Blue Rock Thrushes and Red-necked Nightjars but spare a thought for the moths and other insects.  It has been estimated that up to 30% of insects attracted to such lighting die or are injured by colliding with a hot lamp surface or as a result of predation.  Artificial lighting can have several other negative impacts on a wide range of invertebrates including disrupting their feeding and breeding.  Developments in lighting technology have led to major increases in the distribution and intensity of artificial light in the past few decades and its growth is continuing largely unchecked.  When we consider why insect populations have been so severely reduced, impacting also on the populations of the bird species that feed on them, we tend to think (quite rightly) about pesticides but maybe artificial lighting is also an important contributory factor. 

Thanks to Kenny Boyle for bringing the birds at the church to our attention.