Windy Day

Left to our own devices we might well have stayed home yesterday.  From just a quick look at the weather forecast we could see that it would be a difficult day for birds and birdwatchers with winds of 20mph or more from the NNW.  It was going to be cold and birds were going to be sheltering and hard to see.

However, arrangements were made and we were committed: June to a half day visit to Castro Marim, Peter to a full day in the Castro Verde area in the Baixo Alentejo.

The star bird at Castro Marim was undoubtedly the female Red-necked Phalarope that June found at Cerro do Bufo.  Like many of the other waders here now it was a bird that is moulting into its breeding plumage.  It is only the second of this species that we have seen in the Algarve and is sufficiently rare here that it will require a submission to the Comité Português Raridades.

As well as a dozen other wader species, the supporting cast included Little Bustard, Golden Oriole, Great Spotted Cuckoo, Greater Flamingo, Montagu’s Harrier, Red-rumped Swallow, Woodchat Shrike, Hoopoe and Azure-winged Magpie, some of these very common birds to us but much appreciated by visitors who are here for only a week.

Up in the Alentejo, the day’s bird list included most of the target species but raptors in particular were in short supply and there was only a quick glimpse of Black-bellied Sandgrouse.  Highlights, again from a visitor’s perspective, were Collared Pratincoles, Griffon & Black Vultures, Spanish Imperial Eagle, Rollers, Lesser Kestrels, Great & Little Bustards, Short-toed Eagle, Calandra Lark and Montagu’s Harriers.  However, finding birds was hard work and the area's other attractions including the continuing spectacular display of wildflowers were a welcome diversion.

Days out from Tavira

Last week was a busy one for us with days spent in the Castro Verde area of the Baixo Alentejo and across the border in Doñana as well as around some of the usual sites in the Algarve.

The Alentejo is at its very best right now.  Both Great Bustards and Little Bustards are displaying and easy to see, there are raptors everywhere (13 species this week), Calandra Larks singing, Black-bellied Sandgrouse, Collared Pratincoles, Great Spotted Cuckoos, Rollers, Black-eared Wheatears and more.  However, what makes this time of the year really stand out is the amazing display of wild flowers – carpets of yellow, white and purple with patches of red.  Truly spectacular!

Alentejo flower show...

...too many to name!

Black-eared Wheatear

Lesser Kestrel

Doñana, too, is really looking good.  In complete contrast to last year’s disappointment following the drought, currently there is water everywhere and, as a result, lots of birds fixing to breed.  In particular, there were hundreds of Greater Flamingos and Glossy Ibises and seven species of herons and egrets.  Throw in a few Gull-billed & Whiskered Terns, some Greater & Lesser Short-toed Larks, Red-knobbed Coots, Great Spotted Cuckoos and an assortment of raptors and waders and it makes a great day trip from Tavira.  There was even a Long-tailed Duck at the Cañada de Rianzuela.

Great Spotted Cuckoo

Little Ringed Plover

In the Algarve, we’ve been to Ludo, Quinta do Lago, Olhão and, of course, Tavira, all of them within the Ria Formosa.  Highlights for our visitors have included Collared Pratincoles, Little Bittern, Bee-eaters, Caspian Terns, Slender-billed Gulls and Stone-curlews.  Just as much as those, we’ve enjoyed hearing the air filled with the songs of Nightingales, Cetti’s & Reed Warblers and watching Black-headed Weavers busy building their nests.

Collared Pratincole

Black-headed Weaver

Finally, news of the colour-ringed Common Redshank, H19, which we previously blogged about here.  This bird, which has now spent three winters in the saltpans here, is so faithful to one particular area that when we couldn’t find it on 15th March we were confident that it had left to start its migration to The Netherlands.  At the time, the weather there was awful with temperatures down to minus-3 and it didn’t seem like a good place to be going.  We were worried!  Anyway, the good news is that ‘our’ bird (which we share with Wim Tijsen who ringed it) arrived back on the breeding grounds on 9th April having presumably stopped somewhere on the way to wait for better weather.  We hope for news of a successful breeding season.       

What's in a name?

It’s good to be seeing Collared Pratincoles again!  These migrants typically start arriving back here in Portugal in late March, some staying to breed in the Algarve, at Castro Marim and in the Ria Formosa, but many more continue inland into the Alentejo.  The earliest date on which we have recorded them is 22nd March (2010) but this year it was April before we saw any.

Pratincoles nest colonially in small groups choosing flat open areas, dried mudflats and ploughed fields, usually with short patchy vegetation.  Nest sites change from year to year as conditions vary.  A clutch of three eggs is usual and incubation takes about 18 days.  The young leave the nest after two or three days and fledge after about a month, although the parents may still continue to provide food after that.

From early July the adults undergo a partial post-breeding moult but this is suspended for the southbound migration and by early August most will have left to spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa.  Although lingering birds have been seen as late as September, most Pratincoles probably spend only about four months here in Europe.

In flight, Pratincoles look a lot like terns; on the ground they seem almost like plovers.  They feed on insects, such as grasshoppers and crickets, which they catch in flight.

Wood Sandpipers mostly pass through the Algarve in March and April on their way north to breed in Scandinavia and Russia (or even Scotland) and then again in August and September on the return journey to spend the winter in Africa.  They are never numerous here (anymore than they are in the UK) as their main migration routes lie further east.  Perhaps it is because they are relatively scarce along the western fringes of Europe that it has sometimes surprised us to find them so numerous when we have been travelling in various parts of Africa.

During migration, they are birds that avoid seashores or tidal areas, preferring shallow fresh water habitats, particularly those with wet grassy patches.  Most of the ones we’ve seen in the Algarve have been either at Lagoa dos Salgados or at Castro Marim.
 

Although Wood Sandpipers usually nest on the ground in dense vegetation they do occasionally use an old tree nest of a Fieldfare, much like Green Sandpipers do.  They usually lay four eggs, which are incubated by both parents but it’s quite normal for the female to depart the scene soon after hatching, leaving the male to care for the young.

So what is it that connects Collared Pratincoles and Wood Sandpipers?  Well, the answer lies with their scientific names: Glareola pratincola and Tringa glareola.  It seems that glareola is derived from the Latin word glarea, meaning gravel.  Seven species of pratincoles have the generic name Glareola and perhaps it is just possible to accept that at least some of them have some sort of association with gravel.  However, glareola does seem to be a rather inappropriate specific name for Wood Sandpiper and so far we haven’t been able to find any explanation for how it came about.

Talking of inappropriate, the name pratincole is derived from Latin words meaning 'inhabitant of meadows', a description which hardly fits Collared Pratincole and definitely doesn't apply to Rock Pratincole and some of  the world's other pratincole species.

Taxing Times!

Only a few short weeks after they were announced, plans that were designed to attract more birdwatchers to the Algarve have received a serious setback as a result of today’s announcement from the government of a new tax that is to be introduced on optical equipment including binoculars, telescopes and telephoto lenses.

According to a report in local newspaper “Pubico”, this latest Troika-inspired scheme to raise funds involves licensing the use of all optical aids to birdwatching and also photographic lenses with a focal length of 400mm or more.  Full details of the scheme, which will come into force on 1st April, have not yet been announced but it is rumoured that there will be a sliding scale of licence fee based on the magnification of binoculars and telescopes and the focal length of camera lenses.  One version has it that binoculars with 7X magnification will require a fee of 20 Euros per annum but that as much as 50 Euros or possibly more will be payable to use a telescope with a zoom eyepiece or a camera with a 600mm lens.

Licences will be available from post offices from 1st May and will be in the form of self-adhesive labels that will be required to be stuck to the instrument in question.  Visiting birdwatchers will be required to declare their optical equipment on arrival in the country and licences will be on sale at post offices within all of the airports and at border crossings from Spain.  Although the licences will cover 12 months use, they will still be compulsory for those who are here for only a week’s holiday.

It is predicted that there will be strict enforcement, particularly during the first month (before licences are actually available) and that there will be a regular police presence at the region’s most popular birding sites such as Lagoa dos Salgados, Quinta do Lago, the Estação de Tratamento de Águas Residuais at Vilamoura and nearby cafés and bars.  Unlicensed optics will also be added to the long list of items that will be looked for by the police who are already deployed at traffic islands throughout the Algarve raising revenue in the form of fines.

A spokesman for the local tourist authority, Carlos Praiabela, is quoted as saying that he was disappointed by the announcement but not surprised.  “As a result of our advertising, many more birdwatchers are expected here, particularly from the UK.  There are more than one million members of the RSPB and clearly the government has seen the potential to raise taxes from them.”

Athene Coruja of the Associação Português  de Observadores de Aves said that her members were dismayed by what they see as an attack on a hobby that is quickly gaining in popularity among local people and hoped that the government might be persuaded to think again about the licence scheme.  “Perhaps it could just apply to non-residents”, she suggested.

Water, Water, Everywhere...

Any concerns there might have been earlier in the year about an impending water shortage here in the Algarve can certainly be forgotten now as after several weeks with scarcely a dry day the reservoirs are full to overflowing and there’s water lying everywhere.

Quite a lot of the bird photography we do here is at ponds and puddles.  We’ve tried to attract birds by offering them food but had no success at all; they just haven’t caught on to the idea of a free meal.  However, they do love fresh water for drinking and bathing and we’ve spent more hours than we care to think about sitting by pools of water.

Obviously, this strategy works best when there isn’t much fresh water around.  Last autumn, when everywhere was parched, a burst pipe at Castro Marim resulted in a small pond forming and we were regular visitors there to photograph Green Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank, Stonechat, Southern Grey Shrike and others.  In mid-February, just before the deluge started, we spent several hours at a puddle near Sagres that attracted 21 species during the time we were there.  On that occasion we were particularly pleased to photograph Ring Ouzels and Redwings.

Ring Ouzel

Right now with so much water available we wouldn’t normally consider devoting a lot of time to a single pond but yesterday we came across a Water Pipit that was feeding around the edge of a temporary pool where we have regularly had success in the past.  We couldn’t resist it!

Two hours later we came away with reasonable photographs of Yellow Wagtails and a Little Ringed Plover but less than satisfactory ones of the pipit, which just wouldn’t come close enough.  A Corn Bunting and a Meadow Pipit also popped in briefly but five species was a poor return for the time we put in.

 Little Ringed Plover

Meadow Pipit

Undeterred, we were back there this afternoon (it is only a short distance away) and after an hour or so of watching a White Wagtail and a Meadow Pipit, several Yellow Wagtails chasing each other about and the same Little Ringed Plover as yesterday, the Water Pipit finally showed up.  This time we got the photo but only just in time as the bird was spooked by a noisy Black-winged Stilt and flew into the distance – the joys of bird photography!

 Water Pipit

Yellow Wagtail

Barn Swallows and House Martins have been here in good numbers for several weeks now and there are reasonable numbers of Yellow Wagtails around but otherwise migrants seem quite slow to arrive.  Woodchat Shrikes, Pallid Swifts, Spectacled Warblers, Bee-eaters, Common Cuckoos, Nightingales and Subalpine Warblers are here but not yet in the numbers we might expect.  Maybe the Easter weekend will bring some more. 

Woodchat Shrike

Guatemala Fam Trip - 5

After the Horned Guan trek we left behind Volcán Atitlán and headed instead to Lake Atitlán for a one-night stay at Eco Hotel Uxlabil.  American Coots were numerous on the lake and there were a few Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Ducks but regrettably we were more than 25 years too late to see the Atitlán Grebe.  Among the many birds in the hotel gardens were Azure-crowned Hummingbird, Black-vented Oriole and Greater Pewee.

 Azure-crowned Hummingbird

Lake Atitlán

During our evening at the hotel we talked to the people involved with mayanbirds.com about their birding tours, their guiding, their website and anything else that we thought might help them.

The following morning we took a 30-minute boat ride across the lake to the Laguna Lodge Eco-Resort where we spent about three hours on the trails in their nature reserve.  There was only one target species here, Belted Flycatcher, another species with a very restricted range and eventually we were successful in seeing one.  A bonus was that we also found Rusty Sparrows, a species that is said to occur as far south as Costa Rica but which I hadn’t come across before.

After a night in the Las Farolas Hotel in Antigua we made an early start in order to catch the 6.40am flight from Guatemala City to Flores.  This hour-long flight was followed by a transfer by road to the Hotel Jungle Lodge at Tikal.  By taking this early flight and a late flight back the following day we effectively had two days to see Tikal National Park, one of the major sites of Mayan civilisation, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and an important tropical rainforest reserve.

Our flight to Flores was on a TACA Airlines ATR 42 turboprop aircraft.

The birding at Tikal was superb and two days were not really enough to do the place justice.  The temples, palaces and other Mayan ruins were extremely impressive and probably deserved much more of our attention but it was the birds that made this place a must-visit part of any tour in Guatemala.  More than 300 bird species have been recorded here but if I had to name just one species as the highlight amongst the many we saw it would be Pheasant Cuckoo.  I had been looking forward to seeing the Ocellated Turkeys for which Tikal is well known but they were so habituated to tourists that they somehow lost their appeal.  The Pheasant Cuckoo, on the other hand, is a bird that although widely distributed in Central and South America, in my previous experience has not given itself up as easily as two of them did here.

 Pheasant Cuckoo

Mayan temple

More Mayan ruins at Tikal

Ocellated Turkey

Before returning to Guatemala City we also visited Lake Petén Itza, where at last we saw shorebirds, terns and gulls, and Cerro Cahui, a 1600-acre forest reserve near the lake, where Mayan Antthrush, Grey-throated Chat and Northern Barred Woodcreeper among others were all seen very well.

 Royal Tern

Collared Plover

And that was it!  The trip was over all too soon.  We recorded (saw or heard) something in excess of 280 bird species in our eight days and more than 40 of them were ones I hadn’t seen before in spite of my many visits to Costa Rica and, of course, the USA.  And that really is one of the major attractions of Guatemala; it presents good opportunities to see a selection of species that are restricted to the highlands of Guatemala and neighbouring Chiapas, El Salvador and Honduras.  These include Highland Guan, Horned Guan, Bushy-crested Jay, Black-capped Swallow, Rufous-collared Thrush, Black Thrush, Pink-headed Warbler, Belted Flycatcher, Bar-winged Oriole and more.  The scenery is spectacular, the food (including the coffee and the bananas!) was excellent, the accommodation was very comfortable, the people were friendly and there was magnificent Tikal!  I’m already planning a tour for Avian Adventures.

Guatemala Fam Trip - 4

A website with the title “50 Best Birds in the World” attempts to rank birds based on how impressive, how unique, how rare and how hard to find they are.  It has the Horned Guan (Oreophasis derbianus) listed at No 6.

The Horned Guan is unmistakable in appearance with a red horn of bare skin on the top of its head; it is said that, although classified as a member of the Cracidae, it is not a true guan and it is placed in the monotypic genus Oreophasis; its range is restricted to south-east Mexico and Guatemala; it lives in remote cloud forests high on the slopes of extinct volcanoes.  Based on the stated criteria, there is clearly a good case for describing it as one of the world’s top ten best birds!

Apparently there are easier places in Guatemala to see Horned Guan than Los Tarrales and the Atitlán Volcano but that’s where we were and so when offered the chance it seemed worth a try.  I was warned that it wouldn’t be easy.

Breakfast (or at least a cup of coffee) was at 2.15am after which we drove from the reserve headquarters for about an hour until we could apparently go no further by vehicle.  It was hard to tell – it was very dark!  I was told that we were at an elevation of 1,450m and that the climb up the side of the volcano would take about three hours.

At the start it was fun walking through the coffee plantation by the light of our head torches and seeing the occasional roosting Swainson’s Thrush.  It was quite a while before any more birds were seen, although eventually there were a few identifiable sounds: the calls of Mexican Whip-poor-wills, the rattling produced by the wings of Highland Guans and the fluty song of Brown-backed Solitaires.

Before too long the climb became steeper and more difficult.  This was not one of those winding trails that makes its way gradually uphill, this was straight up, no messing!  Underfoot the ground was dry, soft and crumbly and covered in several inches of leaf litter.  It was very difficult to get any traction and a stick was essential in order to make progress.  Carrying food and drink, a Canon 50D and a 100-400mm lens didn’t make things any easier.  After a couple of hours I thought I might die; after three hours I thought dying might be the preferred option!

By 6.00am there was enough light that I could switch off my head torch.  An hour later there was sunshine but with this improved visibility came the realisation that most of the group, including three local guides, were some way ahead.  Being more than 20 years older than almost everyone else was proving to be a disadvantage.

Then came the good news that a Horned Guan had been sighted.  The bad news was that in order to try and see it I would have to leave the trail and make my way through dense vegetation across a steep slope.  This was even harder than before and more than once I found myself clinging to a branch or a root to prevent sliding down the mountain side.  But this was to see one of the world’s best birds, I kept telling myself.

At last I saw Eduardo Ormaeche.  He was sitting on the ground and looking through a telescope presumably at a Horned Guan.  He was no more than ten metres away.  Then, as I struggled to join him and get a look at the bird, he turned, looked at me and quietly said, “It just flew off”.  My heart sank.  In dense forest there was no possibility of seeing where or how far it had gone.  After four hours of effort, I had missed seeing it by no more than a few seconds. 

The choices now were either to continue uphill and hope to re-locate the bird (or find another one) or instead give up and start the long downhill walk.  We were now at 2,100m, I had climbed something like 650 vertical metres.  It didn’t take much thinking about.  After eating the breakfast I had carried with me, I joined the others and downhill we went.

It was three hours before we reached our vehicle.  By then I had seen Emerald-chinned Hummingbird, Black Thrush and Blue-crowned Chlorophonia that I hadn’t seen before and that was some consolation.  I often hear it said that if birding was easy, we wouldn’t be doing it and I’ve no doubt that’s true.  In spite of not seeing the bird I wouldn’t have wanted to miss the Volcán Atitlán experience.

I shall hope to see a Horned Guan on my next visit to Guatemala but I will make sure to look somewhere other than Los Tarrales!