The Farne Islands, Northumberland

“There is something really special about colonies of breeding seabirds and no matter how many times one sees them on film there’s nothing like actually being there to experience firsthand the wonderful smell and the noise.”  That’s what we wrote five years ago (!) when we visited Bempton Cliffs RSPB reserve in Yorkshire.

Guillemots

Ever since then it has been our intention to visit another seabird colony with Skomer Island and the Farne Islands at the top of our list.  However, crossing to offshore islands to see breeding seabirds isn’t entirely straightforward, particularly if your starting point is in Portugal!  We needed to find an opportunity during what is always a busy time of the year and then we needed some settled weather for the boat crossing.

Atlantic Puffins - very cute!

Finally, this year, we made it.  After just a few days back in the UK we headed north to Northumberland and the Farnes.  Located just off the coast near Bamburgh, the Farnes are well-known as the home of thousands of breeding seabirds and were featured recently on the BBC Springwatch programme, so they need little introduction from us.

Arctic Tern

We spent just three days in Northumberland visiting Holy Island as well as the Farnes.  Our trip to the Farnes was on a boat from Seahouses operated by Billy Shiel.  We landed on Staple Island and on Inner Farne and had a little over two hours on each.

Bamburgh Castle - we stayed nearby

Seahouses harbour

Puffins (about 40,000 pairs) and Arctic Terns (about 2,000 pairs) are probably the main attractions but in recent years there has been a big increase in the number of Guillemots with more than 50,000 individuals counted.  What a nightmare it must be counting that lot - we have difficulty counting just two or three thousand birds at Castro Marim!  In all, about two dozen species nest on the islands, a total that includes several passerines.

Grey Seal - one of the many hundreds

Guillemot - numbers have increased dramatically in recent years

Northern Fulmar - Found only on St Kilda until the 1900s, now 500,000 pairs nest around the British coast

European Shag - the name apparently means 'tufted'

Rock Pipit feeding young

Common Shelduck - just a pair or two breed

Razorbill - one of the world's less numerous auk species

Settled weather and a healthy supply of food are the two important factors that lead to breeding success and from all the signs the auks were doing well.  All three species were bringing in plenty of their staple diet of sandeels.  Arctic Terns, on the other hand, were having a more difficult time finding food, we were told.  What the eventual outcome of the season will be only time will tell.

Atlantic Puffin with sandeels

Arctic Tern - the longest of long-distance migrants

Eider Duck - about 600 pairs breed

Black-legged Kittiwake - said to be the world's most numerous gull species

Red Squirrel - not on the islands but not far from Bamburgh

Being in such close proximity to so many birds (and hundreds of Grey Seals) was a memorable experience and we won’t want to leave it another five years before we enjoy again that distinctive smell and the constant calling of Kittiwakes.

Algarve update

Yesterday we helped with the ICNF monthly count of the wetland birds in the Cerro do Bufo sector of the Castro Marim Reserve.  Who would have thought that on 5th June there would be 1,482 non-breeding Greater Flamingos there?  Who would have predicted that the second-most numerous species would be Black-tailed Godwit (570) or that there would be 135 Curlew Sandpipers?  We were also a little surprised to see how many species there were that we regard as ‘winter birds’: Cormorant, Mediterranean Gull, Red Knot, Grey Plover, Turnstone, Caspian Tern, Dunlin and Ringed Plover were all there, albeit in very small numbers.  The only ducks were the breeding Shelducks, which continue to multiply; another surprise was a single Glossy Ibis.  In total there were 3,250 birds of 27 species.  As usual we took some time to read a few colour-rings, including a Caspian Tern from Sweden and a Lesser Black-backed Gull from Scotland.

Little Tern

Common Shelduck

Although we have continued to spend time at Castro Marim and at various sites within the Ria Formosa, as usual at this time of the year the main focus of our birdwatching has moved away from the coastal wetlands and increasingly in the past few weeks we have been heading inland.  Of course we are always frequent visitors to the Castro Verde / Mértola area in the Baixo Alentejo but recently we have also been exploring again in the interior of the Algarve.

Our travels inland have been taking us to parts of the Serra de Alcaria do Cume that we haven’t seen much of before.  That’s the area we’ve agreed to cover for the latest Portuguese breeding bird atlas project that started this year.  One of the things we like about atlas survey work is that we get to see places that we probably wouldn’t otherwise have a reason to visit.

 Common Redstart

Spotted Flycatcher

We’ve also been looking at other parts of the Eastern Algarve and trying to find some of the scarcer breeding species.  Some of these, such as Common Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher, Nuthatch and Robin don’t perhaps sound very exciting but it’s been fun seeking them out in areas where they are not common but where Nightingales are abundant and where Golden Orioles are common and regularly seen.   At the same time, we’ve found Iberian Chiffchaffs, Short-toed & Bonelli’s Eagles, Black-eared Wheatears, Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin and White-rumped Swifts, any of which would go a long way towards making the day for many birders we know.

 White-rumped Swift

 Rufous-tailed Scrub-robin

 Bonelli's Eagle

Unfortunately, time is running out before we leave here and head first to the UK and then to Tanzania but there are still lots of new places in the Algarve to go and surely more birds to be found!  

Back into Algarve birding

After quite a lot of rain at the end of October and in early November, there’s a fair amount of water lying on the ground here, the rivers and streams are flowing again and many of the saltpans are now flooded to a level that makes them unsuitable for short-legged wading birds.  There has been very little rain these last two weeks but, by Algarve standards, it’s been cold, often with a stiff wind that has had us wearing as many as four layers of clothing!

The numbers of some bird species, Spoonbills and Black-tailed Godwits for instance, have now reduced quite noticeably as they have continued their migration to West Africa, encouraged no doubt by the drop in temperatures and a following wind from the north.  However, the total number of birds remains high as thousands of gulls have arrived and there are Chiffchaffs wherever you look.

Black-tailed Godwit

Searching through the gulls isn’t everyone’s idea of fun but there are occasional rarities to be found and there are colour rings to be read.  A Ring-billed Gull was seen at Sagres at few days ago and two Great Black-backed Gulls were found at Quarteira but here in the Eastern Algarve we have so far had to content ourselves with the regular six species.  However, the numbers of Audouin’s and Slender-billed are now much lower and we have heard that Audouin’s colour-ringed this year in the colony in the Ria Formosa have been reported recently from The Gambia.  A colour-ringed Mediterranean Gull from Italy has been our best find this week.

Audouin's Gulls

We’ve been twice in the past few days to Castro Marim where there is now much more water in the Cerro do Bufo saltpans than we would wish for.  Notable sightings there have included as many as 200 Common Shelducks and close to 100 Black-necked Grebes.  Common Shelduck is a species that bred for the first time in Portugal as recently as 2000 but seems to be doing remarkably well.  Back in the summer we saw more than 100 young ones at a site near Faro but a winter flock of 200 is a record as far as we are concerned.

Common Shelduck

 Black-necked Grebe

Waders can still be found in good numbers and variety around the Ria Formosa.  In fact we have recorded 25 species locally in the last few days.  For us, one of the attractions here is how close we can get to them and, of course, we enjoy trying to photograph them.  Some are easier than others!

Little Stint

Other species that have proved popular with visitors recently have been Greater Flamingo, Bluethroat, Glossy Ibis, Little Bittern and Caspian Tern, all of which we expect but never tire of seeing and showing to people.

Caspian Tern

Less predictable are the hirundines, but at the moment we seem to be seeing Crag Martins just about everywhere (including from our window) and yesterday we saw Red-rumped Swallows.

The Algarve isn’t particularly noted for its birds of prey but in the last few days we have seen several Booted Eagles, an Osprey, Hen Harriers, Marsh Harriers, Common Buzzards, Common Kestrels, Black-winged Kites, a Merlin and an Egyptian Vulture.  And we can add to these the Red Kites, Golden Eagle and Spanish Imperial Eagles that we saw during our day in the Castro Verde area of the Baixo Alentejo.

Booted Eagle

In the Alentejo, as well as the raptors, it was good to see Great Bustards in reasonable numbers and we managed to get quite near to a flock of 100 or more Common Cranes.  On a particularly windy day we struggled to get good views of Calandra Larks or Black-bellied Sandgrouse but the Spanish Imperial Eagles made up for any disappointment; we watched three of them, all young birds, first on the ground and then all together in one tree.  It might have been nice to see them through a telescope but not really necessary as they were close enough that if we had got out of the car they would undoubtedly have flown off.

November was good, December has started well and today the wind has dropped and the temperature has risen.