Awesome Pallid Harrier

Perseverance pays off. I'd seen the juvenile pallid harrier at Vale Santo on two previous occasions and they were both at best very poor views. The first time I'd been following what I thought at the time would prove to be a wild saker when the harrier flew up and was immediately forgotten as I continued to follow the saker. The second time was yesterday when I saw it distantly and identified it from it's size and shape but didn't get much detail. That's not good when we're talking about what is without question the best looking raptor  I've ever seen. Juvenile pallid's are just stunning birds and I really wanted to see it again. 

So following a couple of hours looking for migrants at Ponta da Atalaia at Sagres where the star of the show was a wryneck, I decided to head for Vale Santo and park in the usual spot which would give me a good view over the plains. 

The incredible saker was there again, sitting on it's favourite rocks not too far from a nervous looking little owl. Quite honestly it's gutting to know that this bird has jesses, it would be bird of the holiday and probably the year by a million miles if it was truly wild. What a bird, it preys on kestrels and picks battles with peregrines. It's just an awesome bird. Anyway, I watched it for a bit and then this other guy turned up who was really not a birder, just a photographer, to the extent that he'd never even heard of hen harrier let alone pallid. 

We were talking about the saker when suddenly I spotted a distant ringtail harrier approaching at a distance of about 800m. it was coming straight towards us and at that distance it was impossible for me to get a good impression of the jizz but as soon as it turned it was obviously the pallid. It was almost falcon like it was so slim. It flew right over the perched saker and landed about 100m from the falcon. It took a few minutes for the saker to recover from the shock of having this upstart juvenile harrier fly right past, but when it did, it flew up an launched a full scale attack on the perched bird. The harrier flew up and thought about fighting back but decided that on this occasion flight was the better option. Wise bird. 

The saker now apparently content that the harrier had backed off and shown it the respect that it deserved returned to it's rocky perch and watched as the harrier flew towards us and right over our heads.

I managed to fire off a few photos of the bird but all at my usual standard so I was delighted when my companion showed me his photos. His are the back of camera shots in this post. Maybe it's time for a new camera.......

Awesome saker

So the saker that has been about for the past few days at Vale Santo is an escape. It has jesses. It was inevitable really, there's only ever been one wild record of Saker in Iberia, or so I'm told. It's an awesome bird though, today I was watching a ringtail hen harrier through the scope when the saker suddenly appeared and attacked the harrier, but then swerved away to pluck a kestrel out of the air which it carried off to some rocks, where it perched and ate the smaller falcon. Later a peregrine flew over and the larger saker launched a full scale attack. It was an amazing sight, but now it needs to go. There are endangered species in this area such as little bustard. It's bad enough if they get taken by a wild bird, but being taken by an escape would be really bad news.

A day at Cabronosa

I'm told by local birders that raptor migration is painfully slow so far this year which is typical of my luck, I'm not asking for much, just a normal autumn migration will do. However, I have to take what I'm given and there was still plenty to see at Carbonosa today, with about eight honey buzzards, six booted eagles, Eleanora's falcon (photo above), peregrine, goshawk, sparrowhawk and kestrels, plus a nice selection of passerines including pied flycatchers, spotted flycatchers, western subalpine warblers, whinchats and woodchat shrike. Also of course the usual resident Thekla larks, spotless starlings and Iberian (azure-winged) magpies.

Eleanora's falcon.

Dotterel again at Vale Santo

The dotterel were still at Vale Santo this morning, though I couldn't find them on a return visit this afternoon.

Dotterel, saker and pallid harrier at Vale Santo

While I was at Cabranosa I got some advice from local birder Simon Wates on where too look for dotterel nearby and was delighted to find five birds. Then when I was heading back to my apartment I bumped into my informant again at the side of the road only to find that he was watching a putative saker which has been in the area for a few days. It looks really good to me, but falcons are as bad as ducks when it comes to escapees and hybridisation, so who knows? When the falcon finally flew it flushed a pallid harrier which was a very surreal moment to have the two flying together.

The dotterel all looked like adults to me. I don't think that I've ever actually seen adults at the time of year before, in the UK it's usually juveniles that I see in autumn.

Cabranosa migration watch point

Cabranosa migration watch point is a small wooded hill a few miles north of Cape St Vincent at the south west extremity of Europe. Raptors in particular can be seen here in decent numbers, mainly juveniles which have overshot Gibraltar and which are then are forced to reorientate when they reach the Atlantic Ocean. 

Today I arrived at about 14:30 which was a little late in day, yet even so I managed to see a few booted eagles, marsh harriers and a single honey buzzard. Hopefully things will pick up during the rest of the week.   

There were also a few passerines around today including ortolan, redstart, northern wheatears, garden warbler and western supalpine warbler.

Honey buzzard.

Striped dolphins on an impressive palagic from Sagres

It's not very often that I get a new species of cetacean anywhere these days, so I was delighted when we unexpectedly came across a pod of about 40 striped dolphins on a Ocean Safari cruise out of Sagres with marilimitado today. We were over the continental shelf and the ocean floor was 1000m (1km!) beneath us when these fabulous animals appeared. What gorgeous dolphins they are!

Also today, bottlenose dolphins and a great selection of seabirds, including hundreds of Cory's shearwaters, a few each if great and sooty shearwater, Wilson's and European storm petrels and a great skua.

Striped dolphins

Melanistic Cory's shearwater off Cape St Vincent

Ok let me start by saying that this is a controversial post. This bird has been debated on the internet and some people seem to think that this is just a normal Cory's shearwater and the dark look is created by light conditions. They're allowed their opinion. I think they're wrong and I'm allowed my opinion, especially since I'm the only person who saw this bird in the field. Everybody else is going off just the photos. However, if you're researching melanistic Cory's shearwaters and come across this post, please bear in mind that not everybody agrees with me so perhaps it would be simpler to just forget this bird. Or maybe make up your own mind.

We were perhaps 30km out from Cape St Vincent when we came across a feeding frenzy of Cory's shearwaters. In the middle of them I saw a dark bird and my immediate impression with my naked eye  was that it was a sooty. In otherwords, it was much darker than the Cory's and unlike them it had a dark belly. I fired off a few photos which I then looked at and realised that it was actually a Cory's on size and structure. Then I looked up and the bird was gone. I was on a dolphin and whale watching trip, it wasn't an option to ask the skipper to go hunting for the bird. There were no cetaceans here to satisfy the other punters so we moved on. To be honest I wasn't particularly interested in looking for it myself.

So ignoring the fact that I've just said that it had a dark belly and I initially thought it was a sooty, which should be proof enough on it's own, let's look at the photos.

Firstly, let me make it clear that every photo I took is here, I haven't just cherry picked the ones which look darkest. There isn't a collection of photos hidden away on my laptop which show a white belly. Everything is here.

The photos show the bird flying left and right, raising up and flying flat. In every photo it is the darkest bird by far. I don't need to tell you which one it is, you know as soon as you look at each photo.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any photos of its underparts and that's the main issue. However, in the photo at the top of this post (cropped here) you can see that it has a very dark head, face and throat. None of the other shearwaters show this. The bird below is a typical Cory's. Look at the difference.

Audouin's gull bonanza at Ria de Alvor

On my way from Ria Formosa to Sagres I called in at Ria de Alvor, an area that I've not really been to all that many times. I was staggered today to find around 1000 Audouin's gulls on the saltmarsh. In recent years the species has increased dramatically in southern Portugal and the World's largest breeding colony of 7000 pairs is at Ria Formosa.

Ria Formosa

I touched down at Faro airport in Portugal at 09:20 and by 10:15 I was through passport control, retrieved my hold luggage, picked up the hire car and was birding at Ria Formosa. 

Plenty of great birds to whet my appetite for the trip ahead including white storks, spoonbills, flamingos, osprey, slender-billed gulls and a host of waders.

Three late terns at Pennington Flash

I arrived at the flash today full of the hope and anticipation that perhaps only a birder can feel when he sees light winds and heavy drizzle in the forecast on a dull, late September morning. The weather didn't let me down and once again produced the goods. Not only were yesterdays black tern and the long-staying common tern both still present, but as I watched them from the sailing club I suddenly heard the unmistakable screech of a Sandwich tern and saw two fly past west at close range. After a  brief circle around the western end they headed off north west over the ruck.

I know it's not much of a photo and you will have to take my word for it that they are Sandwich terns, but at least it goes someway to conveying the murk and the difficult viewing conditions.

This is the latest date I have for Sandwich tern at the flash, six days later than the previous record set in 2023, while the black tern is now also a week later than my previous latest at the flash and the common tern is my second latest ever here.

Other birds today included a drake common scoter, three great white egrets and five little egrets.