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 21 species of raptor and 25 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.

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.

Another pelagic, this time from Faro

Today I took another pelagic trip, this time out from Faro with Ocean Vibes. Only bottlenose dolphins today but they performed well, as usual. From a seabird point of view it was mainly petrels today, with good numbers of European storm petrels, plus at least four Wilson's. Perhaps 50 Cory's shearwaters  and six great skuas, plus a few gannets.

Parque Abiental, Vilamoura

It was still dark at 06:45 when I arrived at Parque Abiental, Vilamoura. The reason for the early start was because I knew that there was a  Bird Ringing Group on site and I was hoping to spend some time with them to see what they caught. In the end I didn't need to be there quite so early but my reward was that I was in the hide at dawn when the egrets and ibis left their roost, and I also managed to see some nice birds at first light, such as two little bitterns flying around chasing each other. A really enjoyable morning.

Nightingale, a new species for me in Portugal.

An exhausting walk around Ria Formosa

I walked from the St Lorenzo bird hide at Quinta do Lago, past Ludo salinas and then over the road bridge to Praia de Faro. After a break in a cafe I then walked back along the beach. It's not that it's a particularly long walk at a fraction over 10km (7 miles), but by the time I got the beach and had lunch it was well past noon and the temperature was around 30'C (86'F) so a two mile walk along the beach at that point was not easy. I was exhausted when I got back to the car.

Loads of birds to see, ducks and marsh birds at St. Lorenzo and then waders and terns at Ludo.

Mainly pochard in this photo at the St. Lorenzo bird hide, Quinta do Lago.

Three species of dolphin, four species of shearwater off Cape St. Vincent

Another amazing trip out into the open Atlantic Ocean off Cape St Vincent with mar limitado. We saw about 90 dolphins from three different species, including Atlantic spotted dolphin which is so rare in these parts that this was only the third sighting this year.  Great to see babies with them. Also bottlenose and common dolphins, plus four species of shearwater, Cory's, great, Balearic and sooty.

In the photo above you can just see the baby behind it's mother.

The baby is just coming into view....

There's the baby!

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 the raptor watch point at Cabranosa to see if there might have been an improvement in bird of prey numbers. There had!

Total raptor numbers today across both sites (but mainly at Cabranosa) included minimums of 30 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.