Bearded tits and mandarins at Martin Mere

So last night with Elaine making plans for today that didn't seem to include me, I looked at the weather forecast and decided that I'd spend a few hours at Martin Mere today, since there'd been a few birds reported yesterday which I really wanted to see including a small party of bearded tits. I'd completely forgotten that it was the North West Birdwatching Festival this weekend which meant that the reserve opened at 8am rather than the usual 9.30am which is the time that I arrived 🤦‍♂️. I was disappointed, because to be honest I could easily have been there at 8am and had earlier been bemoaning to Elaine the fact that I had to wait until 9.30. However, it was probably a good job that I was unaware, because I may well not have gone if I had remembered the festival, I don't do crowds. 

There was no doubt about where I was heading first, straight to Teal Garden in the collection. I gave it 10 minutes, saw a few mandarins and then headed to the reedbed. Fortunately I got lucky, one of the wardens was on the bank between the reedbed and the Rees hide, and had four bearded tits right in front of him, including at least one spectacular male. A really stunning sight, but too soon they flew up and headed towards the reedy pool beyond the Rees hide and I was left with one horrible photo 🤦‍♂️.  My first bearded tits at Martin Mere since October 2018. We were joined by Charlie Liggett and walked over to the Rees hide where we saw them again briefly before they flew high back to the main reedbed. What an amazing sight to see them flying in the bright blue sky! Despite a pleasant hour reminiscing with Charlie on the bank overlooking the reedbed, I only had one more brief view of a single male, but did have the bonus of a distant view of a wood sandpiper on Woodend marsh.

I headed back to Teal Garden and saw a few mandarins, then went to look for the ring-necked duck in front of Discovery hide and the green sandpipers at the Hale hide which were reported yesterday. I failed on both accounts, but rather than continue to Ron Barker hide, I decided to return to the reedbed via Teal Garden to see if I could get some decent photos of the bearded tits. Unfortunately I didn't see them again, but called in at Rees hide where the wood sand was much closer. It turns out that this is my latest ever wood sandpiper in the UK, in fact I've only seen one other in October and that was also at Martin Mere on 16/10/1999, so a good late record. I needed some lunch so headed back through the crowds to my car via Teal Garden again where I saw some mandarins, had lunch and then back to the reedbed via Teal Garden and its mandarins 😆. 

This time I did a full circuit of the reedbed but failed to see or hear any bearded tits. Finally at 3pm I decided it was time to go home so headed towards the exit via Teal Garden and its mandarins.

At last, there it was, out in the open!!! A mandarin that is NOT part of the collection, with full wings and no rings. I've been a regular visitor to Martin Mere since 1974, 52 years ago, but this was the first wild(ish) mandarin that I have seen on the reserve, bringing my Martin Mere life list to 198 species. New birds at Martin Mere are few and far between these days, so I'll take what I get. At least it wasn't species number 200!

Merlin and the return of the ring-necked duck, Martin Mere

One of the nicest male merlins I've ever seen at Martin Mere at midday, on Plover field from United Utilities hide. Beautiful contrast of blue grey upperparts and orange hue underparts. I'm never going to get great photos of a flying merlin with my camera setup, but even so these are good enough to id it. Dark terminal band on the tail and dark outer wing all obvious in the photos. It was on the ground when it was first picked up and I waited an hour for it to fly to get these photos. Apart from this plenty of good birds to see, the obvious other highlight being the ring-necked duck from Discovery hide.

Whoopers drop in at Pennington Flash

Twelve whooper swans dropped in at Pennington Flash this morning, at about 08:20, shortly after another five had flown over east. At about 08:30 another four flew over east. Obviously a movement happening today.

Clouded yellow and jack snipe Bickershaw

I flushed a wonderful jack snipe during a midday walk around Bickershaw today. It flew a short distance in front of me, but then turned and flew back past me quite low down and landed out of view a few metres behind me. One of the best views I've ever had of a flying jack snipe. Also today a great white egret, a flyover redwing and four common snipe. 

In terms of insects, there were still plenty of common darters about but the only other dragonfly that I could find was a single migrant hawker. However, I was really pleased to find yet another clouded yellow at the site, my second latest ever in the UK, as well as a single painted lady.

Remembering Ludo, remembering purple gallinules

I remember as if it was yesterday the excitement of seeing my first purple gallinule on a bend of the Ribeira de São Lourenço at Ludo, Portugal on 27th September 1992. I got up at first light and drove along a rough track with no satnav to guide me and no clear idea where I was going except a brief reference in an old book. I parked the car and could see my destination about 200m away, a rickety hide on stilts overlooking the river, surrounded by reeds in the middle of Ria Formosa. 

To get into the hide I had to battle through dense vegetation which made it seem like nobody had been there for years, and then climb up a metal ladder. I entered through a trap door and I could feel the hide swaying as I entered it. On closing the trap door, which I had to do for fear of falling out, I opened the window and found that there was a mist over the river which was packed with coots, gadwall and mallard. After a while the mist had cleared a bit, and suddenly I saw a large dark bird fly across the water and crash into the reeds on the other side, and later I saw another eating reeds by holding them in its ridiculous feet. 

Ribeira de São Lourenço, September 1992

At the time this seemed a remarkable sighting of a species which I thought of as the holy grail of European birding, and a bird which I thought would be very skulking and difficult to see. Two days later that myth was exploded when I found another three walking on the greens of a golf course at Vilamoura, and ever since then I've done very well for the species, even seeing one in the UK in 2016. 

A last visit to Ludo

It's the last day of my holiday today so I decided to stay local. In the morning I headed for the northern section of Ludo salinas which had some nice species including 94 black-winged stilts, 117 avocets, 187 greater flamingoes, 22 slender-billed gulls and 32 Audouin's gull. Also, next to this area is a nice stone pine woodland which can be good for crested tits, short-toed treecreeper and Iberian green woodpecker, all of which I saw plus some other species which I hadn't seen previously on the holiday such as jay.

Then in the afternoon I went to the southern section over the hightide which had a quite different array of birds including hundreds of dunlin, sanderling and ringed plover. The stars, as always though, three Caspian terns resting on one of the salinas. A good way to end the trip.

So in the end, I saw 170 species in two weeks including 22 species of raptor and 26 species of wader. Interestingly, for me at least, that beats my two weeks in Cyprus at the end of March this year by eight species. Some might say that's as expected because islands never have the diversity of the mainland, but actually Cyprus is nearly twice the size of the Algarve which is where I spent most of my time over the past two weeks. Plus I went to Cyprus at peak migration time so didn't have to rely on resident species. I'm quite surprised that Portugal came out on top anyway. Nice to do both trips!

Three of seven Caspian terns that have been on the salinas this week. There's a video of these terns here. 

A walk around the garden

In fact even before I went for my walk I spotted this hoopoe on the ground about 5m from me as I sat at my table eating my lunch. I don't think I've ever seen one quite so confiding! When I did finally drag myself away from this wonderful bird and also the flock of azure-winged magpies that were noisily flying around the stone pines, I had a walk down to view the saltmarsh from the end of the garden. On my way an osprey flew over then a spoonbill, and two zitting cisticolas were in the long grass. A swallowtail butterfly flew past and there were several red-veined darters darting about.

On the marsh I was delighted to find only my second curlew sandpiper of the holiday, plus 40 dunlin, 50 redshank, several greenshank, 26 ringed plover, 6 turnstones, 6 grey plover and singles of various other waders.

Waders at Ludo

I wasn't sure what to do with myself this afternoon but in the end I went for a walk around Ludo. Fortunately I timed it just right because there was a particularly high tide which drove a lot of the waders onto the saltpans. Totals included 84 black-winged stilts, 51 avocets, 185 ringed plover, 5 Kentish plover, 5 whimbrel, 166 black-tailed godwits, 92 redshank, 6 green sandpipers, 6 turnstones, 3 ruff, 1 curlew sandpiper, 115 sanderling, 230 dunlin and 2 little stints. Also 323 greater flamingoes, 46 spoonbills, 9 white storks, 25 little egrets, plus osprey, bluethroat and western subalpine warbler. Not a bad decision.

Curlew sandpiper.

Back with the ringers at Vilamoura

I joined up again with the ringing team at Parque Abiental, Vilamoura this morning, and glad I did as they came up with some great birds and a great story. Highlights today were several white-spotted bluethroats, a quail and penduline tit. 

Most amazing of all though, on Monday I watched as a member of the team extracted a blackcap from a mist net. The bird had a BTO (UK) ring and I noticed that the ringer seemed to recognise the ring. Turns out that the bird was ringed by him in the UK in the midlands! What are the chances? For both him and the bird to arrive at Vilamoura at the same time and for him to be the one who takes it out of the net! The bird must be sick of the sight of him! Just incredible.

Anyway, these bluethroats are smart birds, almost as nice from behind as they are from the front. Perhaps orangetails would be a better name for them. 

This quail was most unexpected.

Southern Alentejo

Today I left the coast and the Algarve for a day and headed 70 miles inland to Castro Verde in Alentejo. From here I zigg-zagged back and forth on minor roads birding for several hours, until I eventually reached the wonderful town of Mertola, high above the Guadiana river on the border with Spain. Birding highlight undoubtedly 11 great bustards, but also a Griffon vulture which was a species I'd not seen before in Portugal.

Griffon vulture in the haze. If I'd gone to Cabranosa at the end of October instead of September, I'd likely have seen hundreds of these passing over, but today I was happy to see just this one, especially on the ground.

Fiddler crabs at the bottom of the garden

For the second week of my trip to Portugal, I've moved from Sagres and am now staying in Montnegro, right near the airport. The reason for staying here is it's quite central for everything and is right in the middle of the Ria Formosa nature reserve.....and my apartment really is in the middle of the nature reserve, as I discovered yesterday afternoon.

I was back at the apartment for 3pm following an early morning and after a chill with a cup of tea I decided to have a walk around the garden. I started a checklist on eBird and set off. When I go back to the apartment the eBird tracker told me that I'd walked just over half a mile (0.8km)!  Think about that. Half a mile walk around the garden.... and there were bits I couldn't get to because of the saltmarsh. Yes the garden includes an area of saltmarsh. You might have hedgehogs in your garden, well these people have fiddler crabs! The garden also has a stone pine woodland, an acacia woodland, a few cork oaks and a sandy heath area, plus wide open views over Ria Formosa. Quite honestly it could be a nature reserve. I've never stayed at a place quite like this.

I recorded 36 species in or over the garden today, including a few greater flamingos, three spoonbills and seven white storks. Highlight though was this wonderful western subalpine warbler.