More Alentejo days

At this time of the year it is difficult to beat a day‘s birding in the Castro Verde area of the Baixo Alentejo, particularly if you enjoy seeing birds of prey.  We’ve been up there three times during the past week and seen 16 raptor species!  That’s five eagles, three kites, three falcons, two harriers, two vultures and of course Common Buzzard.  There has seldom been a moment when there wasn’t at least one raptor in view.
 

Montagu's Harrier

Great Bustards are easy to see; Little Bustards are easy to hear but becoming more difficult to locate as the vegetation grows.  Roadside fence posts and power poles and cables provide perches for countless Corn Buntings and Thekla Larks and a surprising number of Iberian Grey Shrikes; among them the prospect of an occasional Black-eared Wheatear, Tawny Pipit or Short-toed Lark keeps us alert.  Yesterday we found an Ortolan Bunting, which was a surprise - an unusual bird in this area and on an early date.

Little Bustard

 Black-eared Wheatear

Iberian Grey Shrike

Rollers have now returned to their regular nesting areas and they are always fun to watch.  They mostly nest in artificial sites, nest boxes and the like, which are provided for them at several of the farms.  Often they have Lesser Kestrels as next-door neighbours but yesterday we watched a pair that seemed to have competition from Jackdaws.  It is easy to see how a resident species like Jackdaw might gain the advantage over a late-arriving migrant when it comes to nest site selection.  

European Roller

The area is dotted with small reservoirs and ponds where Little Grebes and Little Ringed Plovers are frequent and Black-winged Stilts are often found.  One or two of them have Collared Pratincoles breeding.  We have particularly enjoyed watching the Pratincoles this week.  They are such attractive birds and wonderfully confiding.

Collared Pratincoles

Nesting White Storks never lose their attraction and there are so many that we have given up trying to count them.  There are nests on poles, in trees and on buildings and many of them have tenants living alongside the storks: House Sparrows, Spotless Starlings and Spanish Sparrows.

Spanish Sparrow

And it’s not just a visual experience!  As well as the constant jangling song of the Corn Buntings and the zitting of Cisticolas, most of the water courses with any vegetation have Nightingales singing loudly.  There are numerous Calandra Larks singing and displaying, Bee-eaters can frequently be heard passing overhead and where there is suitable habitat, often roadside eucalyptus trees, there is the sound of Golden Orioles.

Corn Bunting

No doubt we’ll be heading to the Alentejo again next week!  Every day up there is different.   

Another Armchair Tick?

As we all know, Corn Buntings, across their European range, show a clear pattern of microgeographic song variation.  However, the findings of a new paper just published (Riza & Ember, 2014) are still somewhat surprising.

Corn Bunting is widely distributed across most of central Europe and it has long been recognised as variable with as many as six subspecies being proposed based not only on variation in its extremely complex song but also on very subtle variations in barring, colouration and morphometrics.  Extensive work has already been done on variations in its song and it seems that the ‘jangling keys’ description that we see repeated in so many field guides is an over-simplification brought about by the limited range of human hearing.  The reality is that there may be as many as six different bunches of keys!  These have now been distinguished in this latest study by measuring time and frequency characteristics with both univariate and multivariate analyses.  The results demonstrated significant differences in song characteristics among regions, and discriminant function analysis classified 80% of songs to the correct region. Divergence of song can occur rapidly and be of prime importance in causing reproductive isolation and speciation.

The authors propose that two species groups be recognised.  The northern group comprising two subspecies they name Wheat Bunting (Miliaria durumi), while the southern group made up of four subspecies retains the existing name Miliaria calandra but is re-named Barley Bunting, recalling the old Celtic name ‘fat bird of the barley’.

Riza and Ember, in their work examining contact zones between northern and southern divergent groups of birds travelled to the foothills of the Alps in Italy and began looking for locations where the northern and southern groups of Corn Buntings came into contact. In Piedmont, they discovered locations where the northern and southern forms co-existed, and began their work using sound, morphometrics, and genetic analysis to answer the vexing question of whether there was indeed more than one species.  Their aim was to discover whether there was a gradual change in traits (genetic, morphological, song, etc) as one would expect if there was gene flow between the two forms or whether the two forms overlap while maintaining their distinctive differences, indicating that they maintain reproductive isolation from one another.

'Jangling keys'

As well as their work on vocalisations, Riza and Ember also set out to examine functional relationships between the morphology of buntings and their behaviour. They found that Wheat Buntings have relatively longer feet than Barley Buntings, and they also have relatively long back claws and toes. This they thought may be related to the circumference of the birds’ favoured perches with power cables being more frequently used in the north while barbed wire is the more commonly used in the south.  Although the differences in size were statistically significant, they were not thought to be on a scale that would affect either species’ ability to sit on a fence post for long periods.  It was noted that song flights with dangling legs were common to both species in spite of the size differences noted in their feet but that the song flights of Barley Buntings were of longer duration, probably because they have wings of higher aspect ratio than Wheat Buntings, and they also have a lower wing loading.

Their conclusions are now published and once again we find ourselves totally amazed by a split of a species we thought we knew well.  We recommend that you try to read the paper in full for yourself.

Photo Session

We’re always on the lookout for photo opportunities and very often they are provided by birds being attracted to water.  A little over a week ago we came across several puddles that looked promising with dozens of birds coming to drink and bathe.  Song Thrushes and Redwings seemed to be the most numerous and we saw Blackbird, Robin, Blackcap and several Greenfinches but unfortunately there wasn’t time to stop and see what else there might be.  We knew though that we would soon have to go back and find out!

It wasn’t until yesterday that the opportunity arose.  The weather was ideal and thankfully there was still plenty of water and lots of birds.  As many as 21 species were seen coming to one puddle!  It was good that some of them also perched on nearby bushes while awaiting their turn at the water.

It was impossible to estimate numbers but Greenfinches, Song Thrushes and Redwings were the most numerous until a flock of European Starlings arrived.  Ring Ouzel is a species that we haven’t photographed before and there were at least three different individuals.

Here’s just a few of the day’s many images, all taken from the car.

Bustards, Raptors and Lots More

Yesterday we drove just a short way north for another great day in the Baixo Alentejo. It was mostly cloudy and a stiff breeze made it quite chilly at times, so from a weather point of view it could have been better but the birding was excellent.

Our aim, as usual, was to get good views of as many of the areas special birds as possible rather than go for a long list but we still managed to record 77 species during the day. Inevitably, some of them, for instance Quail and Wren, were only heard.

Great Bustard is of course the ‘flagship species’ of the Castro Verde area and at this time of year they’re not difficult to find. We saw about 120 of them during the day. Little Bustards, although more numerous in the area, are much more difficult to see but although we managed only a handful there were some good views.

Little Bustard

There were plenty of raptors as usual. Not only did we see 10 species but we saw all of them very well - Marsh, Hen and Montagu’s Harriers, Red, Black and Black-winged Kites, Short-toed and Spanish Imperial Eagles and both Common and Lesser Kestrels. It was a particularly good day for Spanish Imperial Eagles; twice in the morning we saw two birds together and later three birds gave great views. We saw them from below, we saw one sitting on a fence post and, when we were on top of a small hill we even looked down and saw them from above! It’s hard to say how many different birds were involved in our three sightings; they were some distance apart but it seems unlikely that we saw seven birds.

Red Kite

Although the extensive grasslands were the main focus of attention, the area does have a number of lakes/reservoirs and small ponds. As a result, we saw quite a number of species that most people probably associate more with the Ria Formosa rather than the Baixo Alentejo. Most notable amongst these and a surprise even to us were three Greater Flamingos which looked completely out of place. Others at the same location included Spoonbills, Common and Spotted Redshanks, Greenshank, Northern Pintail, lots of Northern Shoveler and Gadwall and even a female Red-crested Pochard.

Many White Storks appear now to be sitting on eggs but there are still lots of them in the fields and there was one point in the afternoon when we were able to look around us and count 70 birds!

White Stork

Corn Bunting

But the day wasn’t just about the big birds. Corn Buntings are now singing from every roadside fence and we lost count of the Southern Grey Shrikes! We were also quite taken with a Water Pipit that was well into its pink summer dress, a common enough bird but looking very smart indeed. Great Spotted Cuckoos were also among the day’s more popular species, but maybe that's just because of how English people feel about the Common Magpies in whose nests they lay their eggs!

Doñana

Yesterday we crossed the border into Andalucia and spent the day in the Doñana area. It was only our third visit there this year but our second this week! In January we managed to choose a foggy day, last Sunday it was cloudy and it rained; at last, yesterday was sunny and warm!

Squacco Heron

White Stork

We often wonder what the Algarve would have been like for birding 50 years ago, before the tourism industry took it over and destroyed so much of the habitat. To some extent that same question about Doñana is answered by Guy Mountfort’s book, Portrait of Wilderness, an account of three expeditions to the area in the 1950s which helped establish the Doñana National Park as one of western Europe's outstanding natural areas. Doñana is unrecognisable now as the wilderness that was explored by Mountfort and his colleagues. Since those days, the area has suffered, like the Algarve, from tourist development and human encroachment, wetlands have been drained, river water has been diverted to boost agricultural production and there is also pollution from surrounding agriculture. In 1998, the area was threatened by a huge spill of toxic sludge from a reservoir at the Aznalcollar mine into the Guadiamar River. Having identified such a wonderful area and recognised its importance for wildlife, how could it be possible to allow so many negative impacts to continue over the following 50 years?

Northern Wheatear

Black Kite

The good news is that, in spite of everything, Doñana is still a wonderful area for birds and other wildlife. There may be times when it is dry and maybe seems rather uninteresting but right now it is teeming with birds, many that are there to breed and many that are just passing through. We had a great day and the question now is how soon can we go again?

Corn Bunting

Greater Short-toed Lark

If you haven't read Guy Mountfort's book, you really should! Likewise, if you haven't been to Doñana...