Avian Adventures in Portugal

We've just spent a week leading the Avian Adventures Christmas tour. In past years we have taken groups to Arizona & New Mexico, Texas, Cuba, Costa Rica and South Africa for Christmas birding but this year we had the people come to us in Portugal and we joined them, staying six nights in the excellent Vila Galé Albacora, located close to Tavira and just five minutes drive from home.

Hotel Vila Galé Albacora

The weather was kind to us more or less throughout. Although it was pouring with rain in Tavira on the morning of Christmas Day, we were able to change our plans and by driving out to Cape St Vincent managed to stay dry. Otherwise, it was a mixture of 'partly sunny' and 'partly cloudy' with a generally pleasant temperature.

Our programme for the week took us to all our favourite birding sites in the Algarve plus, of course, there was a trip into the Castro Verde area of the Baixo Alentejo.

Star birds of the week for us were the two Barnacle Geese seen less than a kilometre from the hotel on the Tavira saltpans. It seems that this was the first record of this species in the Algarve! Unfortunately, they were very skittish and quickly flew out of sight before there was any possibility of a photograph.

Also around Tavira we were able to find at least two Slender-billed Gulls, a male Hen Harrier, a Peregrine Falcon, almost 100 Stone-curlews and the usual selection of waders. The hybrid egret ('Hollywood Egret') at Santa Luzia performed well and we were also pleased to note the return of the similar garzetta x gularis hybrid at Forte do Rato, a bird we haven't seen for a while.

Forte do Rato - dates back to the 16th Century

Slender-billed Gull

Kentish Plover

We had an excellent day in the Ludo/Quinta do Lago area where Booted Eagles, Black-winged Kites, Marsh Harriers, an Osprey and a Hen Harrier all appeared on cue and we had little difficulty in seeing Little Bittern, Glossy Ibis and Purple Swamp-hen. A Black-crowned Night Heron and two Sacred Ibises were seen in flight.

Amongst the most popular birds of the week were the Penduline Tits seen at Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura. There were also Booted Eagle, Marsh Harrier and Purple Swamp-hen there and all four hirundine species were feeding together over one of the lagoons - Barn Swallow, Red-rumped Swallow, Crag Martin and House Martin. The trees and bushes were full of Blackcaps, Robins, Blackbirds and Song Thrushes; there were Siskins and Serins feeding together in the conifers and two Black-necked Grebes on the ETAR.

Penduline Tit

Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura

Our trip to Cape St Vincent produced one major surprise, a Great Bustard, the first we have seen in the Algarve. More to be expected here were Red-billed Choughs, Blue Rock Thrush, Rock Doves and Shag. Little Bustards were seen only in flight and at some distance.

At Lagoa dos Salgados there was relatively little water but plenty of birds - a nice selection of waders and ducks, plus Spoonbills, Purple Swamp-hen, hundreds of Black-headed Gulls and a couple of Bluethroats.

Castro Marim proved a little disappointing - the closing to birdwatchers of the Cerro do Bufo section of the reserve is undoubtedly a major blow to those of us who have been regular visitors there. However, we did get reasonable views of about 20 Little Bustards. Nearby, at the mouth of the Guadiana, we were able to find at least four Little Terns.

Our day around the Castro Verde area produced few surprises. We saw around 70 Great Bustards, mostly in flocks of about 15 or 20, there were lots of Red Kites, we found one good-sized flock of Calandra Larks, Cranes and Little Bustards were few but there were plenty of Black-bellied Sandgrouse. The highlight was seeing an adult Spanish Imperial Eagle on the ground with what appeared to be four immature birds of the same species.

All in all it was a satisfactory and very enjoyable week and hopefully we have sent 12 more people back to the UK to spread the word about how good the birding can be in the Algarve.

Hoopoe - always a crowd-pleaser

The Last Few Days...

For us, highlights of the last week or so in the Eastern Algarve have been a Black Kite and more than 20 Slender-billed Gulls at Castro Marim, three Black-crowned Night-Herons and about 60 Stone-curlews just outside Tavira and two Penduline Tits and two Griffon Vultures near the Spanish border.

We’ve spent quite a lot of time sitting in the car photographing waders and we’ve also been trying to get some better shots of the local Bluethroats. There seem to be three or possibly four different Bluethroats in quite a small area but so far they have ignored the perch we provided for them, leaving it to a very obliging Sardinian Warbler to pose on.






The weather has taken a turn for the autumnal, temperatures still 20° and above but for a few days now we have regularly had a stiff breeze blowing. Yesterday we made the long trip out to Cape St Vincent (which seems to have a climate of its own!) and suffered a wet and windy morning there before retreating back to Alvor and then to Lagoa dos Salgados where the weather was much better.

From the lighthouse we watched countless Northen Gannets passing just offshore, the majority of them adults, gleaming white against the grey sea. A few Cory’s Shearwaters also went by. Before the weather closed in completely we did see a couple of distant Griffon Vultures, a handful of Common Buzzards and a Hen Harrier but really it wasn’t a morning for raptor passage. Four Ring Ouzels were probably the 'best' birds seen.

At Alvor there was a selection of the usual common wader species, a Water Pipit and just a single Greater Flamingo. A Water Rail was making a lot of noise but typically remained hidden.

Lagoa dos Salgados has recently been drained again but still had a decent number of birds to offer. A Peregrine Falcon was sat on a post in the middle of the dry lagoon, a Marsh Harrier was patrolling and what appeared to be a late female Montagu’s Harrier was also hunting along the far shore. There were about 20 each of Spoonbills and Cormorants and at least 50 Grey Herons. Other than a flock of 30 or so Northern Lapwings there were just a few waders including a single Golden Plover.

Another Day at the Cape

Yesterday we were at Cape St Vincent again - only two days after our last visit but it was quite different. The sun shone from a mostly clear blue sky and there was just a light breeze - no hint of rain all day. And the birds were different.

We began by stopping off at a small wooded area near Sagres where on Wednesday there had been no birds at all. Now there were several Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, Willow Warblers, a Chiffchaff or two, Blackcaps and Garden Warblers and half a dozen or so Blackbirds which were probably also newly arrived migrants.

Garden Warbler

Along the peninsula there were still plenty of Northern Wheatears and a few Whinchats but a short seawatch from the lighthouse produced only Northern Gannets and one or two Cory's Shearwaters.

We saw our first Black Stork of the day from the car and watched it disappear out over the sea. We like to think that this same bird was one of those we saw later from the raptor watchpoint after it had realised the need to make a U-turn. Raptors today included about 20 Booted Eagles and about 30 Eurasian Griffons, the latter being our first of the autumn. Mostly they were fairly distant but a Short-toed Eagle did fly more or less overhead.

Blue Rock Thrush and Red-billed Choughs duly obliged but for once Little Bustards eluded us. We should probably have been there earlier before the many surfers who inevitably cause a bit of disturbance on their way to the beaches.

A pleasant enough day was rounded off by a brief visit to the Alvor Estuary where the usual Spoonbills, Greater Flamingos and a few of the common waders were quickly seen before we headed back east.

Another Sagres pelagic trip

Pelagic trips from Sagres with Mar Ilimitado have become a feature of autumn here in the Algarve and are something to which we look forward. Yesterday's three hours or so aboard Ricardo Silva's boat, Kogia, were particularly enjoyable as the sea was flat calm and the sky almost cloudless, a marked contrast to some pelagic trips we've been on!

Ricardo specialises in dolphin-watching trips so it was no surprise that Common Dolphins were the first species that we came upon. This one was photographed while it was completely submerged, just alongside the boat.


We hoped to find a fishing boat that was already attracting seabirds, perhaps including storm-petrels and shearwaters but the only boat we saw had only Northern Gannets and gulls in attendance.

Northern Gannet

Yellow-legged Gull

Later we did see a couple of Sooty Shearwaters, a few Balearic Shearwaters and 50 or more Cory's Shearwaters but for a while we had to be content to watch Gannets and it was a chance to put the new Canon 50D through its paces.

Several European Storm-petrels and a Wilson's Storm-petrel were seen but none came very close and they presented a much more difficult subject. Great Skuas were impossibly distant to photograph.

European Storm-petrel

All of the day's gulls were Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed except for this lone Mediterranean Gull.

For us this was a new view of the lighthouse at Cape St Vincent, the south-westerly tip of mainland Europe.

We probably didn't go more than about 10 miles from land all morning but the only time we found shearwaters in any numbers they were quite close to the shore. These two were amongst a raft of 50 or so Cory's Shearwaters that included one bird identified as being of the slightly smaller Mediterranean race known as Scopoli's Shearwater.



When we were about one kilometre of the tip of the peninsula and intent on looking for shearwaters, it was a surprise to see flying overhead five Booted Eagles and a Honey-buzzard. Going in a south-westerly direction, these birds presumably thought they were heading for Africa. Let's hope it wasn't too long before they realised their mistake!

Lagoa dos Salgados and more

Back in the Algarve and yesterday we headed for Lagoa dos Salgados. With a new camera to try out we concentrated mostly on the waders including a surprising Buff-breasted Sandpiper, the first time we have seen this species in Portugal. The camera is a Canon 50D and there's hardly been time yet to read the manual but here are a few 'first attempts':

European Golden Plover

Ringed Plover

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

Osprey

Dunlin

Little Stint

Today we were around the Cape St Vincent area in the morning where Northern Wheatears and Pied Flycatchers were the most numerous passerine migrants. A Golden Oriole was an unexpected find but otherwise we saw the usual suspects including Red-billed Chough, Blue Rock Thrush and a flock of 19 Little Bustards. We had lunch at the raptor watchpoint but in our short time there saw only a Hen Harrier and a handful of Booted Eagles.

On the way back we stopped for an hour or so at the Alvor Estuary where we had an enjoyable walk and saw the expected Greater Flamingos, Spoonbill and a selection of waders that included Greenshank and Little Stint.

West and East

Thursday was devoted to a trip out to the west: Cape St Vincent, Vale Santo, Sagres, etc. although it was another sunny, cloudless day again there was a chilly wind.

We began at the lighthouse where we quickly found a Blue rock Thrush and several Black Redstarts. We looked hard for Alpine Accentors up to about half a dozen of which have wintered here in the past. Last year our first was on 6th November but there was no sign of them today.
Looking back towards the raptor viewpoint we could see that there were Griffon Vultures in the air so we headed in that direction and eventually saw about 350 of them. There were also a couple of Egyptian Vultures, at least two Black Kites, maybe three Booted Eagles and a Black Stork. We stayed watching them for quite a while during which time at least 10 Short-toed Eagles and 10 Common Buzzards also passed over.

As we headed for Vale Santo, we came across a Ring Ouzel and later we saw three more, one of which at least seemed to be of the race alpestris. Vale Santo had a flock of 400 or more Golden Plovers; at one point they were panicked by two large falcons. Presumably they were Peregrines but we did recall that this was exactly where we once saw a Lanner Falcon. A large area of land had been ploughed and a tractor was still going back and forth with Cattle Egrets, White Storks and White Wagtails the main beneficiaries. There were lots of Meadow Pipits, Skylarks and Thekla Larks. Other birds of note seen during the day were Northern Gannets and a Shag, Crag Martins, Ravens and Red-billed Choughs.

Yesterday we went a short way east and spent the day at Castro Marim. It was far less windy than of late and we enjoyed some excellent birding. In the total of more than 80 species recorded the highlights for us were probably Little Bustards, Lesser Short-toed Larks, Yellow Wagtails and Northern Wheatear (both rather late), Hen Harrier and about 100 Black-necked Grebes. We were also pleased to see the Peregrine Falcon on its usual post. It is difficult, though, to pick highlights out of so many birds.

After several days with little but birding, today was earmarked for catching up on some domestic stuff - shopping, washing, etc. An Egyptian Vulture was seen over Tavira during the morning. Later we did find time to have a couple of hours around the Tavira and Santa Luzia saltpans where we counted 25 Audouin’s Gulls, the Grey Egret was in its usual place and we photographed a few waders. Bird of the afternoon was a Temminck’s Stint that flew in and dropped by the roadside. It quickly walked into water that almost covered its legs but you can just see that they are yellow.

Temminck's Stint