Back in the Algarve at last!

We’ve been back in the Algarve for just a week now and seem to have timed our return quite well.  The weather is very pleasant but no longer uncomfortably hot, children have returned to school and birds are migrating!

 Short-toed Eagle

Already we have been to Castro Marim, Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura, Lagoa dos Salgados (twice) and Sagres (twice) and seen more than 120 species.

Castro Marim, usually one of our favourite reserves, proved to be something of a disappointment.  There are plenty of birds there, particularly in the Cerro do Bufo sector but with access to the site restricted it is difficult to get close to many of them.  Highlights were Black-necked Grebes, Audouin’s & Slender-billed Gulls and of course there are hundreds of waders and Greater Flamingos but a telescope was definitely a necessity.  The salt harvest is in progress and it looks to have been a productive season.

 Salt harvest and Black-tailed Godwits

 Juvenile Greater Flamingo

Dunlin

There was also much salt-related activity at Ludo.  As so often, it was raptors there that proved most popular with five Booted Eagles putting on a show and a single female Marsh Harrier quartering the reedbed.

Booted Eagle

At Quinta do Lago, Little Bitterns were the stars.  We saw seven or maybe eight different birds.  A Water Rail showed well; a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron and a Whiskered Tern were unexpected treats.  We lost count of the number of Western Swamphens but nine of them were together, completely in the open on the golf course; two Glossy Ibises took off and left before we had much chance to look at them.  Five species of gulls were on the lagoa de São Lourenço and two or three Kingfishers were chasing each other about.

Lagoa de São Lourenço from the hide

The Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura has become a favourite place at this time of the year and it didn’t disappoint – it was full of birds!  Most numerous were Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs and Yellow Wagtails with one or two Northern Wheatears and Pied Flycatchers but we know from past experience that all sorts of rarities can and do turn up here at this time of year.  We will be back for another look very soon.  A Black-winged Kite here was reasonably approachable.

Northern Wheatear

The water level at Lagoa dos Salgados was lower than we would have liked but still there were impressive numbers of birds.  Notable were a Marsh Harrier, an Osprey, a Black-winged Kite, at least four different Bluethroats, a Little Bittern, several Western Swamphens and what appeared to be a thunbergi-type Yellow Wagtail.  Waders included Little Stint, Bar-tailed & Black-tailed Godwits, Common Snipe and Wood Sandpiper.  We searched through hundreds of gulls without finding anything other than fuscus, michahellis and ridibundus.  Glossy Ibises were especially numerous and on our first visit we estimated that there might have been as many as 1,000.  We managed to read colour-rings on several of them, which identified their origins as breeding sites near Sevilla and Huelva in Andalucia.  Two colour-ringed Spoonbills had travelled further – one from France and one from the Netherlands.

 Common Snipe

 Lagoa dos Salgados

Glossy Ibis

Both of our trips to Sagres produced reasonable numbers of raptors and importantly there were good, close views of many of them.  Most numerous were Black Kites (31 on the first visit, slightly fewer the second time).  Also seen were Egyptian Vultures, Short-toed Eagles, Booted Eagles, Honey-buzzards, Common Kestrels, a Sparrowhawk, a Goshawk and a Peregrine Falcon.  Two Black Storks came close overhead.  We saw just a single Little Bustard and a couple of Red-billed Choughs, while migrants included a Wryneck, several juvenile Woodchat Shrikes, Common Redstarts, both Pied & Spotted Flycatchers, Whinchats and Northern Wheatears.

 Egyptian Vulture

 Black Stork

Little Bustard

So, not a bad start (for us) to the autumn migration period and still more than enough places to visit. 
 

Sagres and Salgados

Yesterday we made the long drive to Sagres and Cape St Vincent.  We looked in at the Fortaleza de Beliche, mingled with the many tourists around the lighthouse that marks the south-western extremity of mainland Europe,  drove out to the Vale Santo and then spent a couple of hours at the Cabranosa raptor watch point before making a brief visit to the port of Baleeira.  It’s a circuit that we have done many times.

We saw the expected Red-billed Choughs, Rock Doves, a Blue Rock Thrush, Black Redstarts, a few off-shore Gannets and a very obliging Little Owl; it wasn’t a great day for passerine migrants but they included many Northern Wheatears, both Pied & Spotted Flycatchers and several Phylloscopus warblers.  Most of the interest, however, was in the sky above as Short-toed & Booted Eagles, Griffon & Egyptian Vultures, several Sparrowhawks, a Black Stork, a Hen Harrier, a couple of Black Kites, a Honey-buzzard, a Goshawk, several Common Kestrels and a probable Eleonora’s Falcon vied for attention.  Apparently a Spanish Imperial Eagle was seen later in the day, after we had left!  It is to be hoped that those attending next weekend’s Sagres Birdwatching Festival are as well entertained.

Northern Wheatear

On the way back east we called in at Lagoa dos Salgados for a couple of hours.  The lagoon has certainly been transformed by the restoration project that was carried out at great expense a few months back but in spite of promises about more control over water levels there was still more water than we might have liked.  At this time of year it would have been good to see a bit more mud around the edges and although there was a nice selection of waders we might have hoped for higher numbers.  Not surprisingly the newly created islands were covered in gulls, mostly fuscus and michahellis but also a few ridibundus and audouinii.  A Sandwich Tern and a Black Tern both made brief appearances.  There were a few Spoonbills, Great Flamingos and Cormorants and small numbers of common dabbling ducks.  Migrants included Yellow Wagtails, a Whinchat and several Northern Wheatears and at last we saw our first Bluethroat of the autumn.

Great Black-backed Gull at Sagres

Great Black-backed Gull is quite a scarce species in the Algarve; in 2008, the last year for which an annual report has been published, there were just four records here.


In most years, birds occur between November and February, usually singly; sub-adults predominate. With thousands of large gulls wintering here and relatively few observers, it is probable that a few get overlooked.

The favoured sites are the ‘docapescas’, the fishing docks, at Sages, Portimão, Quarteira and Olhão. This bird found yesterday at Sagres harbour fits the pattern exactly.

Sagres

Yesterday we had a successful trip to Sagres where, in the harbour, we easily found the long-staying Rock Pipit and at least two, maybe three, Purple Sandpipers.



Rock Pipit is a rarity in Portugal and there have been few previous records in the Algarve. Purple Sandpiper, too, is a scarce bird here. However, both species have occurred previously at Sagres (although maybe not at the same time!) and that’s definitely the place to look for them.

There has been some discussion about the origin of the Rock Pipit. On the basis that the British and Irish race petrosus is thought to be mainly sedentary and that petrosus and the Fenno-Scandian race littoralis are said to be inseparable in winter plumage, we have to conclude that it is very likely to be a littoralis. Exactly where it is from is another question.

There have actually been reports of two Rock Pipits being present but at no time did we see more than one. Having said that, maybe our photographs confirm that there are two individuals - what do you think?



Although we concentrated our efforts on photographing these two main attractions, it was hard to resist other species that took up photogenic poses on the lichen-covered rocks.

Whimbrel

Ruddy Turnstone

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Later we headed off towards nearby Cabo de São Vicente where we enjoyed something of a ‘turdus fest’ with multiple Fieldfares, Ring Ouzels, Mistle Thrushes, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds and a single Blue Rock Thrush.

All in all, a good day’s birding – and the weather, once again, was perfect!

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!

Sagres Pelagic Trip

We took a ride out to the west again this morning, to Sagres. We covered much of the same territory that we visited on Wednesday and some of the birds seen today, including the Golden Plovers at Vale de Santo, were probably the same individuals we saw during our earlier visit. There were fewer passerines today but still the odd Common Redstart and Pied Flycatcher here and there. Several Common Kestrels, a Peregrine Falcon and a Marsh Harrier were all seen before we even reached the raptor watch point.

At the watch point, where we stayed for only half an hour or so, we saw a Black Stork, three Short-toed Eagles, seven Booted Eagles and a Sparrowhawk. We heard later that 40 Griffon Vultures and an Egyptian Vulture were seen there in the afternoon but we had other plans and we have accepted now that we can only be in one place at a time!

After a coffee break at the birder-friendly Pastelaria Marreiros in Sagres we headed down to the harbour to meet Ricardo of Mar Ilimitado with whom we had arranged for an afternoon boat trip. After last month’s 11-hour pelagic trip that took us 50 miles out into the Pacific Ocean from the Oregon coast, today we were at the other end of the spectrum with a two-hour trip that took us just eight miles out from Sagres. However, we saw plenty of birds: at least one Great Shearwater, one or two Sooty Shearwaters, several Balearic and Cory’s Shearwaters, two European Storm Petrels, two Great Skuas, countless Northern Gannets and of course lots of Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed Gulls. Not a bad return for such a short trip and all of the birds were seen really well. And neither of us was seasick!

Great Shearwater

Day trip to Sagres

On Wednesday, along with Ray Tipper, we made the trip west to the Sagres/Cape St Vincent area hoping to see some of the migrants reported earlier in the week and, as always, to find a few birds that we could photograph.

We began in a small area of coniferous woodland where we were pleased to find that there were still numerous Pied Flycatchers and Willow Warblers. Some of the Willow Warblers looked exhausted and it seemed likely that they might be new arrivals. At least one Blackcap and small numbers of Spotted Flycatchers, Common Whitethroats, Garden Warblers and Common Redstarts were also present.

From the raptor watch point we saw half a dozen or more Common Kestrels, a couple of Sparrowhawks, a single Marsh Harrier and a Black Stork but it didn’t seem like a day when there was going to be much movement of raptors so we didn’t stay long. A juvenile Woodchat Shrike in this area was the only one seen during the day.

As we headed for nearby Vale Santo, we stopped briefly to try and photograph a low-flying Short-toed Eagle but without much success. There were just six Golden Plovers where on another day there might have been Dotterel but there were no complaints as we soon saw Choughs, Northern Wheatears, Whinchats, Spotless Starlings, Yellow Wagtails, White Wagtails, Skylarks and Thekla Larks. Three or four Short-toed Larks flew over and we found several Ortolan Buntings. A Peregrine Falcon was the cause of temporary alarm and a Black Kite became the sixth raptor species of the day.

As the usual the area by the lighthouse was well populated with tourists so a few minutes here was long enough for us see a few Northern Gannets heading south and the usual Black Redstarts on the cliff top. We looked for a Blue Rock Thrush but didn’t find one until later when we stopped at a regular spot for them on the way back towards to Sagres. We also saw Shags here.
We completed the day’s birding with a short diversion to Martinhal where amongst a small group of Dunlins, Little Stints and Ringed Plovers we found the ‘oddity of the day’ a leucistic Ringed Plover.