Castro Marim & Tavira

After a period when we were frequently at Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Vilamoura and other sites to the west, all of our birding this past week has been either at Castro Marim or around the Tavira/Santa Luzia area.  Although there were a couple of days with reasonably early starts it has mostly been at a pretty relaxed pace and we’ve spent quite a few hours cooped up in the car trying to take photographs.  Still we have managed to see more than 100 species.

For visitors who have been with us the birds which seem to have brought the most pleasure have been Little Bustards, the two regular Ospreys, Bluethroats, Purple Swamp-hens and Great Spotted Cuckoos.  There has also been some enthusiasm for the gulls, particularly Audouin’s and Slender-billed but also Mediterranean.

Little Bustard

 Bluethroat

Audouin's & Lesser Black-backed Gulls

For us the highlight was probably the Wood Sandpiper at Castro Marim, which by a few days was our earliest record of this species.  It was also good to find Little Ringed Plovers birds that we don’t often see in February.  These two brought the total of wader species seen during the week to an impressive 26.

 Little Ringed Plover

Northern Lapwing

The arrival of increasing numbers of hirundines encourages us to think that the migration season is now upon us.  House Martins are inspecting what’s left of last year’s nests on buildings in the town centre; Barn Swallows are everywhere and a few Red-rumped Swallows are also appearing.  It should be only a couple of weeks before the first Woodchat Shrikes return and by then we should also have seen Yellow Wagtails.  Spring is surely just around the corner!

Making our birding count

Although January might not be thought of as the most exciting time of the year for birding in the Algarve, there continue to be a succession of interesting birds to see and plenty of reasons to be out, including the really nice weather.

Red-breasted Flycatcher

The influx of Brent Geese at the start of the month was unusual and caused a bit of a stir but the bird of the winter so far has surely been the Red-breasted Flycatcher, which was first reported on 12th December and still remains at the edge of the golf course at Quinta do Lago.  All previous records of this species in Portugal (fewer than 20) have been in October or November and none of those was reported to have stayed for more than a few days so this one is exceptional.  Living alongside Chiffchaffs and often feeding on the ground, it is obviously finding enough to eat but would probably have been better off heading to India or Pakistan for the winter with the rest of the Red-breasted Flycatcher population.

Other rarities have included a Ring-billed Gull at Lagoa dos Salgados, a Caspian Gull at Quarteira, an American Wigeon between Olhão and Faro and a Red-knobbed Coot at Foz de Almargem.  The last two of these are presumed to be the same birds that spent much of last winter at the same sites.

Slender-billed Gull

 Penduline Tit

Ferruginous Duck

In the ‘interesting and good to see category’ but not rare are several species that are easy to find but localised or here in just small numbers.  These include Penduline Tits, Alpine Accentors, Slender-billed Gulls, Ferruginous Ducks and Black-necked Grebes.

Recently we’ve spent quite a lot of time counting birds.  As usual, we helped out the ICNF with the monthly waterbird count at the Castro Marim Reserve where Greater Flamingos were the most numerous species - there were 1,069 of them!  Next came Black-tailed Godwits (824), Dunlin (795), Avocets (448) and Black-headed Gulls (273).  We get two hours either side of high tide to do this count and we usually need most of that time.

 Kentish Plover

Walking the beach for Project Arenaria

When we went a few days later to survey a stretch of beach just east of Monte Gordo as part of Project Arenaria it was a different story entirely.  This was a low tide count and although we had a long and pleasant walk we saw very few birds.  Based on our experience in previous years we had expected to find a lot of loafing Yellow-legged & Lesser Black-backed Gulls but there were none at all and we found just a handful of Sanderlings and Oystercatchers and a single Kentish Plover.  As part of this survey we are also required to count the number of people on the beach and the number of dogs not on a leash.  The people didn’t quite outnumber the birds but it was a close thing!  Project Arenaria is a survey of the non-estuarine coast.

Last week we were back to high tide counts.  These were at Santa Luzia, Livramento and Fuseta as part of a survey of the entire Ria Formosa organised by the ICNF.  Both Santa Luzia and Fuseta had more than 2,000 birds.  At Fuseta more than half of the birds counted were gulls of five different species; at Santa Luzia there were 15 wader species that made up more than 80% of the total.

Osprey

Last Saturday we devoted the best part of a day to a count of wintering Ospreys that involved more than 130 observers throughout the country.  Surprisingly, at the end of the day, even allowing for some double counting it was estimated that between 71 and 81 birds had been seen with a minimum of ten of those being  in the Algarve.  Although we didn’t see one on the count day in the area that we were allocated, they have definitely become a familiar sight here and we saw one in Tavira yesterday that may well have been missed on Saturday.  No doubt we’ll be seeing more soon as birds start to return from West Africa on their way to Northern Europe.      

Brent Geese

As reported previously, one of the highlights of our birding on New Year’s Day was finding a flock of ten Dark-bellied Brent Geese in the Ria Formosa.  These are birds that breed in Siberia and normally spend the winter in Western Europe, mainly in the south of England, northern France and the Dutch/German Wadden Sea.  It was surprising therefore to find these in southern Portugal and the species is rightly considered to be a rarity here.

Dark-bellied Brent Goose, Lagoa dos Salgados, 07/01/2015

We now know that these ten geese seen near Faro are only part of the story and that there has been quite an influx of Brents into Portugal in the past few weeks.  There was a single bird in the Estuário do Cavado in the north of the country as early as 27th October and there were a few reported further south around Peniche and Lagoa de Óbidos early in December but it wasn’t until after Christmas that it became clear that something a bit unusual was going on with birds at the Ria de Aveiro, Lagoa de Óbidos, Lagoa de Albufeira and the Estuário do Sado.  In the Algarve, there have been birds in the Ria Alvor (5) and at Lagoa dos Salgados (1) as well as those in the Ria Formosa.

Because birds may be moving around it is difficult to be precise about how many of them there have been but Gonçalo Elías has collated the records and estimated the total to date to be between 62 and 82.  Although recent winters have seen small numbers of Brents arriving in Portugal, there hasn’t been an influx on this scale since 1991/92 when 110 birds were reported here, 73 of them in the Ria de Aveiro.

Dark-bellied Brent Goose, Lagoa dos Salgados, 07/01/2015

What is interesting and has been drawn to our attention by Edmund Mackrill, who has been counting and ageing Brent Geese in Lincolnshire for almost 30 years, is that the 1991/92 influx and this latest one follow particularly successful breeding seasons.  Is there a connection, we wonder?

It has been suggested that breeding success in the tundra is connected to the 4-year Lemming cycle.  This may be the result of predators such as Arctic Foxes switching to eat eggs and young birds in years when Lemming numbers are low.  If that is so, one might almost say that the occurrence of Brent Geese in Portugal is at least loosely correlated with the breeding of a small, furry rodent in the Arctic - not something that would readily spring to mind!

You can find out more about Dark-bellied Brent Geese here, here and here.  You can see here a short clip showing an adult and three young birds at the Lagoa de Albufeira, which apart from anything else demonstrates just how approachable these geese can be and this has been a feature mentioned by observers elsewhere.  It was certainly true of the bird at Lagoa dos Salgados that we saw on 7th January.

It would be very interesting during the coming days and weeks, if any birders seeing Brent Geese here in Portugal could age them and perhaps determine brood sizes and then post details in a comment here on the blog.

Close...but no cigar!

Yesterday we were in the Algarve to see the start of 2015 and we enjoyed an excellent day’s birding as we attempted to beat our previous best New Year’s Day species total.  That record was set in 2010 when we managed to find 106 species during a day spent mostly at Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Castro Marim and Tavira.

This is not the sort of birding that we usually do; mostly we prefer a more relaxed approach, but once in a while we like to demonstrate just how good birding in the Algarve can be in ‘winter’.  It’s not about getting the year list off to a good start, either - we don’t keep a year list - it’s just a bit of fun!

The weather can make a huge difference to the outcome of days like this and we could hardly have wished for better.  Admittedly it was cold when we left home at 6.45am and there was frost on the ground when we arrived at Ludo but we didn’t see a cloud all day and later the temperature reached a toasty 17ºC.

Our plan had been to follow more or less the same route that had brought reasonable success in 2010 but then came a remarkable report of five species of hirundines being seen at Parque Ambiental de Vilamoura on New Year’s Eve.  Hirundines are pretty scarce here currently.  In fact we have seen only Crag Martins in recent weeks.  Surely we couldn’t resist the possibility of five species that would be a substantial boost to our total. 

And so it was that after spending most of the morning at Ludo, Quinta do Lago and Praia de Faro, instead of heading back east, we decided to go further west to Vilamoura.  This ruled out any chance that we might have time to go to Castro Marim, which is actually one of our favourite sites; there were a couple of species at least that we might have found there that we were now unlikely to see.  Still, we reckoned, Vilamoura and the hirundines were a better bet.

As it turned out, we did see species at Vilamoura that we probably wouldn’t have seen elsewhere, notably Penduline Tit and Ferruginous Duck, but we didn’t see any hirundines whatsoever!  With the benefit of hindsight, the time spent driving there and the time that it took to walk to the further of the two hides might perhaps have been better spent elsewhere.  Maybe we might have found some of those species that we think of as being common but which simply don’t put in an appearance on days like this when you particularly want them.  We’re talking here about the likes of Linnet, Teal, Golden Plover, Iberian Grey Shrike and Stone-curlew all of which we have seen in recent days but failed to find yesterday. 

After leaving Vilamoura we visited several of our favourite sites close to Olhão and then finished the day around Santa Luzia and Tavira where we knew we could easily and quickly find Audouin’s Gull, Slender-billed Gull, Bluethroat, Black-necked Grebe, Greenshank and Red-legged Partridge but wrongly thought we would find Stone-curlew.

We finished the day having seen 105 species, just one short of our record.  We might have stayed out longer and looked for a Barn Owl or even an Eagle Owl but we reckoned that if we could be out all day and not see a Linnet, the chances of seeing another owl were probably slim!  And, anyway, we weren’t in a competition, we were just out enjoying ourselves.

The highlight of our day was finding a flock of 10 Brent Geese in the Ria Formosa.  This species is a rarity here and it was the first time we had seen them in the Algarve. 

It would be nice to think that one year we might improve on our record from 2010.  There are probably about 30 more species here in the Eastern Algarve that we might have seen, some of which would have been easy given another couple of hours.  The main limiting factor on New Year’s Day is the extent of territory that can reasonably be covered in the relatively short hours of available daylight.  The key, therefore, is in the planning and perhaps also in not allowing yourself to be diverted from the plan in the hope of seeing hirundines at Vilamoura! 

Over the past few years we’ve been lucky enough to spend New Year’s Day birding in Costa Rica, Cuba, South Africa, Texas, Arizona, Florida and California but on a beautiful day like yesterday the Algarve stands comparison with any of these.

Black Vultures

Aegypius monachus is a species that we see fairly often in Portugal, most frequently in the Baixo Alentejo but also, from time to time, in the Algarve.  We usually refer to it as Black Vulture or sometimes Eurasian Black Vulture, which are the names used in the Collins Bird Guide and which have been in use as far back as one cares to look.

Eurasian Black Vulture

 American Black Vulture

However, just a few years ago came the IOC World Bird List, the list of recommended English names for all the world’s birds.  Now we were urged to refer to Aegypius monachus as Cinereous Vulture.  This change was proposed with the intention of avoiding confusion with Coragyps atratus, the Black Vulture of the Americas.  Just who proposed the name Cinereous, meaning ‘ashy-grey’ isn’t clear.  Presumably it was someone who had never been fortunate enough to see one of these huge birds, which may not be black but which are certainly not ashy-grey.

American Black Vulture

At about the same time, the British Ornithologists’ Union somewhat bizarrely, proposed a change of name, not to Cinereous Vulture, but to Monk Vulture.  Not surprisingly, this didn’t gain widespread acceptance but did add to the confusion for a while.  The suggestion that Coragyps atratus should be called American Black Vulture while Aegypius monachus remained Eurasian Black Vulture was rejected, possibly on the grounds that it was too simple but more likely because the Americans involved in the decision making could not come to terms with ‘their bird’ having to be anything other than simply Black Vulture.

None of this is new, of course, but the subject was recently a topic of conversation while we were in Florida where (American) Black Vulture is a very common bird that we saw every day.  This is a species that has increased in numbers quite significantly during the last 25 years but it’s an increase that has brought a variety of problems and conflicts as the birds have adapted to living in close proximity to the human population.

American Black Vulture feeding on Armadillo

For some years vultures have been reported causing damage to residential and business property. Their droppings can kill trees and are said to create unsanitary and unsafe working conditions at power plants, refineries and communication towers. They can sometimes appear aggressive towards people and they harass and sometimes kill livestock.  In flight, they can be a danger to aircraft.

And they routinely cause damage to parked motor vehicles by pecking at windscreen wipers, sunroof seals, and other rubber or vinyl parts.  Black vultures are primarily scavengers that play an important role in ecosystems, cleaning up dead and decaying animal carcasses - they are regularly seen feeding on roadkill.  Rubber and vinyl certainly isn’t a part of their natural diet and only rarely do they eat any of it. Typically, the material is simply discarded after it’s ripped from the vehicle.  However, that’s not much consolation if it’s your shiny SUV that’s just been trashed!

You have been warned!

On our tour we first became aware of the Black Vulture problem at Myakka River State Park where there were notices on the car park warning of the possibility of birds attacking vehicles.  However, it was at Royal Palm Hammock in Everglades National Park that we saw the birds in action and felt the need to take some preventative measures.  The situation there has become so serious that tarpaulins and bungee cords are provided so that visitors can cover their vehicles and that’s exactly what we did.  Others didn’t heed the warnings and paid the price!

No one seems to know what it is that has brought about this behaviour from the vultures and there is much ongoing research into the problem, which is far from being unique to Florida.   Although the Black Vulture receives legal protection in the United States under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 inevitably when the problem can’t be dealt with in any other way, birds are killed - about 5,000 of them annually according to the U.S.  Dept. of Agriculture.  And that’s just the ones they know about that were killed legally.

Of course, the American Black Vulture and the Eurasian Black Vulture are not closely related; similarities between the two are due to convergent evolution.   For some time it was thought that the New World Vultures were more closely related to the storks than to the birds of prey but that idea seems to have fallen from favour and some would now place them in a separate Order, Cathartiformes.  Whatever they are they seem to be quite a problem and one that isn’t going to be dealt with easily.

It's good to be back!

On Wednesday morning, after a month away from Portugal, which included our Avian Adventures tour in Florida, we were ready again for some Algarve birding.  As is usual when we’ve had time away, we began by spending a few hours checking our local area around Tavira and Santa Luzia. The weather was almost perfect - clear blue sky, temperature up to 18ºC.
  
One of the reasons for being in Tavira is that we particularly enjoy seeing waders and it wasn’t surprising to find 22 species within walking distance from the town centre.  With a bit more effort we might well have added to that total.

 Bar-tailed Godwit

Whimbrel

For once we were able to watch all six of the commonly occurring gull species together in one saltpan.  There seem to be fewer Audouin’s now but probably more Mediterranean than we expected and still a few Slender-billed.   Black-necked Grebe numbers had increased to ten and while we were seeking them out a Marsh Harrier flew through; several Bluethroats and a Little Owl were exactly where we had last seen them in mid-November.

 Slender-billed Gull

Bluethroat

We stayed out until dusk hoping to see a Short-eared Owl but we were out of luck.  For several winters they hunted regularly around the Tavira saltpans but we haven’t seen one here since February 2013.  The day didn’t produce anything exceptional but with little effort and mostly from the car we recorded more than 70 species.

The only really notable bird that has occurred here while we were away was a Red-breasted Flycatcher that was found at the edge of the golf course at Quinta do Lago on 12th December.  This is a comparatively rare species in the Algarve with only about seven previous records and none quite this late in the year.  Thanks to Simon Wates, we saw one in November 2009 at Figueira but the possibility that this recent bird might still be in the area was all the excuse we (and Ray Tipper) needed for an early start yesterday for a trip to Ludo and Quinta do Lago.

One of the first birds that greeted our arrival there was a Booted Eagle and it proved to be just the first of at least nine of these lovely birds that we counted in our first half hour.  Just as impressive in their own way were 20 or more Grey Herons standing together in the soft morning light, dwarfing the Little Egrets that were sharing the same plentiful food supply.

Little Egret

Spoonbill

Nearby several Spoonbills marched purposefully away from us, three sporting an array of colour-rings details of which we have since reported.  Duck numbers had increased since our last visit; Wigeon and Teal were particularly vocal, sounds that we once associated with cold or damp winter mornings at Belvide Reservoir in Staffordshire!  There was the usual good selection of waders with Black-tailed Godwits and Dunlin the most numerous; a Kingfisher flashed past and several Cetti’s Warblers called loudly. 

Around the golf course we found a couple of Hoopoes and two Mistle Thrushes and from the pines we could hear the calls of Short-toed Treecreeper.  Most of the birds in the surrounding trees were Chiffchaffs but eventually the Red-breasted Flycatcher appeared, albeit briefly.  It hardly stayed still for more than a few seconds and quickly disappeared.  We had to wait quite a while before we saw it again but then we were able to watch it for more than half an hour as it flitted from pine to eucalyptus to olive finding the tiniest food items.  We wonder how long it will stay!

Red-breasted Flycatcher

There was time on the way home for a quick look at the saltpans near Olhão.  Amongst the Mediterranean Gulls there we managed to read two colour-rings, one from France and one from Hungary.

When we got back to Tavira there was only one way to round off a successful morning - lunch at Restaurante Ana!  It really is good to be back!

Just back from Florida

We really enjoy the Algarve at this time of year.  It’s much less crowded with people than it is during the summer months but it’s still full of birds.  Also, the weather is generally rather better than we can expect in the UK with temperatures forecast to be as high as 18°C in the next few days.

Having said that, we do also very much like birding in other parts of the world that have a warm climate and we never turn down an opportunity for some winter birding in the USA.  In November, December and January of the last few years we have led tours for Avian Adventures in California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico and Florida, often over Christmas and the New Year.  Just like the Algarve these southern states attract countless wintering birds from the north and there’s always a chance of finding something unusual.

This year’s tour in Florida from which we have just returned was most successful and full of interest.  Not only did we record a good selection of birds but there were also butterflies, mammals, reptiles and amphibians to keep us occupied.

 Green Heron

 Osprey

 Reddish Egret

 Loggerhead Shrike

Limpkin

Compared to Arizona, California and New Mexico, Florida isn’t particularly attractive scenically, it’s rather flat and much of it is only a few feet above sea level.  It is the eighth most densely populated of the US states and much of it has been built on.  For all that there is surprising habitat diversity and it still has plenty of wildlife.  The birds include a splendid variety of wetland species, several subtropical specialities some of which occur nowhere else in the USA and many exotics that have either escaped from captivity or been deliberately introduced.  There is just one endemic species, the Florida Scrub-Jay, first officially recognised as a separate species only about 20 years ago and now for many birders one of the main reasons for visiting Florida.

Florida Scrub-Jay (John Cutting)

  White-crowned Pigeon

Apart from the Florida Scrub-Jay, the most notable birds seen during our tour were Snail Kite, White-crowned Pigeon and Limpkin, none of which can be found elsewhere in the USA, Burrowing Owl of the subspecies floridana, which is much darker in appearance than the birds we see in Arizona, the white morph of Great Blue Heron (“Great White Heron“), Vermilion Flycatcher, Worm-eating Warbler and Summer Tanager that are all somewhat scarce in Florida during the winter and Henslow’s Sparrow, a species that neither of us had seen previously.  We also saw two House Finches in the Everglades National Park, a common enough species in the northern part of the state but almost unheard of so far south and the cause of some excitement among the locals.

  Great Blue Heron - white morph

Burrowing Owl

Amongst the mammals the main attraction is West Indian Manatee, which we saw in several different locations.  Nine-banded Armadillo was also popular although most frequently seen as road-kill.  Snakes included the attractive but venomous Pygmy Rattlesnake.  With our emphasis very much on the birds, we paid attention mainly to the larger butterflies such as the potentially confusing Gulf Fritillary, Monarch, Viceroy, Queen and Soldier.  Needless to say, we saw countless Alligators.

 Nine-banded Armadillo

Gulf Fritillary

We were also fortunate to be able to watch the launch from Kennedy Space Centre of the Orion EFT-1.  We joined a small crowd of people at Kennedy Point Park at first light on a rather dull morning to see the rocket lift off and very soon disappear into the clouds.

Lift-off from Kennedy Space Centre

We can thoroughly recommend Florida for a winter birding break.  If it appeals to you, let us know - we are planning another tour there for Avian Adventures in January 2016!