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.   

Hot and Hectic!

With temperatures continuing around 25°C along the coast and 5 degrees warmer than that in the Baixo Alentejo, it’s been a another warm week for us as well as a fairly hectic one.

We’ve enjoyed two reasonably successful trips to the plains around Castro Verde looking for the special birds of that area. Even if we didn’t find Little Bustards, any day that produces four species of eagles has to be considered a good day!

On the other hand, our trip to Sagres and Cabo de São Vicente at the far western end of the coast was something of a disappointment - we simply picked the wrong day. Of course we were hoping to see some raptors migrating but few were in evidence – just a few Egyptian Vultures, a couple of Booted Eagles and one or two Hen Harriers. Not only that but we missed seeing the Rose-coloured Starling that was reported in the area. Lots of Northern Gannets and Cory’s Shearwaters were passing offshore and there might well have been more but we came away and spent the afternoon at Lagoa dos Salgados.

Black Redstart at Cabo de São Vicente

Salgados had an excellent assortment of birds in spite of the water level being rather higher than ideal. Purple Swamp-hens and Glossy Ibises were amongst the species seen. On the way back, we called at a site that regularly provides Black-crowned Night Herons and Little Bitterns with hardly the need to get out of the car. On this occasion it also provided a bonus in the form of a Wryneck.

Of course, Wednesday’s Pectoral Sandpiper was the week’s main highlight but, in terms of birds that we don’t often see here, a group of five Sacred Ibises is worthy of mention. Maybe while there are still only five of them we should be considering whether these are birds we really want here – perhaps a topic for another day.

Pectoral Sandpiper

Sacred Ibises

A morning spent in the Ria Formosa began well with five Booted Eagles, two Black-winged Kites and two Common Buzzards in the first half hour. In fact it’s been a good week for Black-winged Kites, a species which definitely seems to be increasing in numbers here. Twice recently, early starts have resulted in Red-necked Nightjars being the first birds of the day.

As usual, the Tavira/Santa Luzia saltpans have had a fair amount of our attention. This week the number of Mediterranean Gulls has increased and it’s now sometimes possible to see six gull species together – often with a Caspian Tern amongst them. More Bluethroats have arrived but there must surely be more to come and the same is true of Chiffchaffs, one of the most numerous species here in winter. With unseasonably warm weather being enjoyed further north, perhaps some of these migrants aren’t yet feeling the need to move south. The local Stone-curlews have been more difficult to see recently but can still usually be found. An Iberian Grey Shrike seems to have settled in the same area and we’re hoping it will stay around.

Mediterranean Gull

Stone-curlew

Iberian Grey Shrike

One afternoon we popped across the border into Spain and had a couple of hours birding around Isla Cristina. It’s not somewhere we often go but it made a change. We saw most of the regular wader species and, like almost everywhere else we’ve been this week, one or two Pied Flycatchers and Northern Wheatears.

Northern Wheatear

Today we were at Castro Marim where several Black-necked Grebes were our first since our last visit to Cerro do Bufo.

As we’ve said before: so many birds, so little time!