The floodgates open at Sagres

It all kicked off today as migrants flooded in to south west Portugal. I started at Ponta da Atalaia in Sagres where there had clearly been an overnight fall of passerines, especially whinchats and willow warblers and then excitedly went to Carbonosa to see if there might have been an improvement in raptor numbers. There had!

Total raptor numbers today across both sites (but mainly at Carbonosa) included minimums of 23 booted eagles, 10 short-toed eagles, 4 Bonelli's eagles, 14 honey buzzards, 2 goshawks, 4 sparrowhawks, 2 black kites, 3 peregrines, 2 common buzzards and 1 red-footed falcon, plus 5 black storks, while passerines included 83 whinchats, 60 willow warblers, 12 redstarts, 10 garden warblers, 15 northern wheatears, 3 whitethroats, 2 woodchat shrikes, 5 blackcaps, 5 western subalpine warblers, 1 pied flycatcher and 1 spotted flycatcher. Resident species seen included 25 azure-winged magpies, 10 Thekla larks, 4 Audouin's gulls, 15 Sardinian warblers, 2 black redstarts, 2 chough and 20 spotless starlings. A breathtaking and very tiring day!

The raptors here are almost all juveniles which are inexperienced and have become disorientated and missed the short crossing to Africa at Gibraltar. When they reach Sagres they find that they have run out of land on the very edge of Europe and are forced to reorientate. On warm sunny days from about mid-morning they start to climb high on the thermals and head back east towards the Rock. Sometimes they can be low and give excellent views, but on most other occasions they are very high. The photos above and below are short-toed eagles.

Riding the waves with Wilsons petrels

This morning I joined Mar llimitado again for a pelagic out of Sagres into the Atlantic ocean. The difference today, there was a moderate northerly blowing so instead of heading west past Cape St Vincent we went south east to calmer waters. 

A big difference in numbers today, whereas on Sunday we saw a thousand Cory's and even a couple of great shearwaters, today we were reduced to just five Cory's and a single Balearic, with no greats.

However, for some reason there were a lot more storm petrels, I counted at least 40 European and 15 Wilson's. We'd seen a couple of the latter on Sunday but I didn't get a good look at them, and since they were a new species for me in the Western Palearctic, they were my main target species today. 

Storm petrels are always a joy to see and Wilson's must go down as perhaps the most charming. Tiny little birds, only marginally larger than our own European storm petrel, they patter across the water searching for food on the surface seemingly oblivious to the huge swell and windy weather. I believe that they engage in this "walking on water" far more than European storm petrels. 

An improved raptor passage at Carbonosa

My daily routine now includes an afternoon visit to Carbonosa watch point. It's not been as good as it could have been but even so I usually see a decent number of raptors, plus a few good migrant and resident passerines so enough to make me keep going back. It's always worth a visit and today I was back again to spend the best part of four hours staring at the sky, waiting and hoping. 

Once again I wasn't disappointed as this afternoon was the best day of the week so far, with nine booted eagles, four honey buzzards, two peregrines, goshawk, hen harrier, several kestrels, four sparrowhawks and best of all, two Egyptian vultures, two black kites and a single Bonelli's eagle. Sadly I managed to miss five short-toed eagles which were seen just before I arrived. Now if we could just turn some of those numbers into double figures we'd be rocking as they say. Maybe tomorrow.

Passerines included my first Iberian grey shrike of the trip, a couple of whinchats, redstart, Thekla larks and the usual azure-winged magpies.

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 through the scope what I thought at the time would prove to be a wild saker when the harrier flew up and was immediately, noted, forgotten and lost as I continued to follow the falcon. 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. Neither of these views are 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 about 200m away and 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 and profile it was impossible for me to get a good impression of jizz but as soon as it turned it was obviously the pallid. It was almost falcon like it was so slim. It kept coming straight towards us and eventually flew right over the perched saker and landed about 100m to the right of the falcon. It took a few minutes for the saker to recover from the shock of having this upstart juvenile harrier fly right over it's head, 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 suspiciously 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

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.