Birding The Algarve

I'm a bit late posting this, as I've been busy with other jobs since returning home.

At the end of February Dawn and I made another journey to the sunny Algarve. I have now been to The Algarve six times including autumn, spring and winter trips. One of the tasks I have been doing before writing this was to work out my Portuguese bird list. My total is 208 species, with an average of around 125 per trip.

I managed to get some new ticks on this trip, which included Dunnock! Also Arctic Skua, Common Scoter, Great Black-backed Gull, Razorbill, Purple Sandpiper, Song Thrush and Sora.

A storm at the end of the trip proved excellent for sea watching. I was able to watch Great Skuas passing along the coast right from my hotel balcony. At Cape St Vincent Cory's Shearwaters were passing by continually and amongst them I counted 20 Great Skuas in an hour.

Cape St Vincent

The following morning after an even stronger blow I picked up 11 Common Scoters passing westwards just offshore at Praia da Rocha. At the eastern end of Praia da Rocha the Arade River empties into the sea. At this point there are two breakwaters and along one of these I found a single Purple Sandpiper. These are quite scarce down in The Algarve, so a good bird to find for a visitor.

Purple Sandpiper

Before I set off on my trip I knew that a Sora Rail was wintering near Silves. This is only about 20 minutes from Praia da Rocha where we stay, so as soon as we picked up our hire car we headed to Silves. It was high tide when we got there, so we had plenty of time to kill. Dawn had a look around Silves, which is a splendid old town with a fortified town wall and castle. I spent some time photographing some metal ringed Black-headed Gulls. One had been ringed in Poland and the other at Silves. Eventually the water level dropped as the tide fell and as soon as the mud was exposed out came the Sora. The viewing position is much higher than the riverbed, so it was difficult to photograph well.

Sora

We visited the usual spots in the course of the holiday. Salgados Lagoons had been drained of much of its water and so fewer birds were there than normal. In contrast we had a great day near Faro at Ludo Farm and Ria Formosa West. Here we recorded 73 species in the day. The highlights were a couple of showy Glossy Ibis and a female Little Bittern.

Glossy Ibis

Little Bittern

I always search the harbour at Portimao for colour-ringed gulls. Since my first trip in 2013 I have been on the lookout for colour-ringed Yellow-legged Gulls from further north in Portugal - the supposed heartland of the sub-species lusitanius. Since 2013 I have actually realised that the breeding Yellow-legged Gulls along much of The Algarve's rocky coast are also of the sub-species lusitanius. On this trip I was pleased to find two first-winter Yellow-legged gulls that had been ringed on Berlengas Island near Peniche.

Yellow-legged Gull (L. m .lusitanius)

These first-winter lusitanius Yellow-legged Gulls are slower to moult their tertials and coverts compared to their michahellis cousins. This is the same with firs-winter LBBGs, so identification can be tricky at times.

Another challenge I had set myself was to find a colour-ringed gull there that I'd also seen at Shawell. Well there was something familiar about the code DLDA. When I checked I realised I'd seen this one at Shawell during June 2016. It is a Lesser Black-backed Gull and was ringed as a chick in 2012 in Suffolk.

I'm also always on the look out for one of the Severn Estuary Gull Groups colour ringed Lesser Black-backs. I had only seen one during my previous trips, so I was pleased to find another this time.

Lesser Black-backed Gull

The two hour drive to Castro Verde was once again worthwhile. We arrived at the LPN centre just after the sun had started to peak above the distant horizon. Approaching the reserve we spotted Crested Larks frozen to the spot, as they were caught in the beam from our headlights. As we parked up a Lesser kestrel landed in the tree right by our car. It sensed our presence and disappeared as quick as it had arrived. I was surprised to hear many Quail singing, as it was still February.

We set off on the circular walk and found it difficult to avoid standing on the thousands of slugs and caterpillars that covered the path.

I missed out on seeing a Great Spotted Cuckoo last May, so I was delighted when I saw one flying towards us on this trip. It alighted on a fence not too far away and stayed there for at least five minutes. The caterpillars that were everywhere proved attractive to the cuckoo and in the video below you can see it enjoying eating a few.

Little Bustards avoided us this time, but we did enjoy watching a male Great Bustard displaying.

The video below shows the Great Spotted Cuckoo, displaying Great Bustards and a Lesser Kestrel. Don't forget to set it to HD quality.

I had always wanted to visit Sines on the west coast of Portugal, because of its strategically placed fishing harbour. I did this time, but I was very disappointed. There were few gulls there and the fishing fleet didn't arrive with a good catch to bring the gulls in. I'm sure another time it would be much better. I did enjoy seeing the surfing waves rolling in on one of the beaches near to Sines.

The harbour at Sagres proved better, although the rare gull I hoped to find was avoiding me. I did enjoy photographing a couple of Great Black-backed Gulls there, which was a new bird for Portugal for me.

Great Black-backed Gull

It felt like spring in the Algarve with Swallows and House Martins already nest building. The White Storks were also on their nests, but they are always on their nest in The Algarve.

House Martins

White Stork

The Algarve is a great place for birding and as you can see it has quite a lot of diversity.

The Easiest Twitch Ever

I am a bit slow off the blocks these days when collecting new British Ticks. I had seen a sickly Blue Rock Thrush at Hemel Hempstead many years ago and I missed a good one on the Scilly Isles by a day, so when one turned up in Stow on the Wold I was not really that tempted - that much! I was a bit fed up last Sunday due to the weather, so I decided to have a ride down to the Cotswold's in search of a bird that was confusing the yellowy coloured Cotswold stone for a rock face in the Med.

It took just over an hour to get there. I walked into the Maugersbury Close and soon spotted my target perched on a roof top. No wait for hours to see this bird. After a couple of minutes it flew off and didn't reappear. I was back home almost before anyone knew I gone.

The light was terrible, so I videoed it.

Enjoy...

Today's News From Shawell

I was looking forward to today's session as Steve Nichols had seen two adult Glaucous Gulls yesterday on the tip. He had managed to distantly view the landfill area from the small lane on the north side.

The weather was against me at first with fog making viewing difficult. As it began to clear I spotted a juvenile Glaucous Gull distantly, but soon lost it as the gulls took to flight. I re-spotted it several times before it came close enough for a record shot. It appears to be another new one, as last week's Glauc was really dark whereas this one was a typical biscuit brown.

Juvenile Glaucous Gull

At the same time as the juvenile Glaucous came close so did the regular juvenile Iceland Gull.

Juvenile Iceland Gull

After taking record shots of the two gulls above I began to scan through the gulls on a raised plateau situated about another 100 metres behind the main flock. Amongst them was an adult Glaucous Gull. It may have been last week's colour-ringed one, but its legs were hidden in a rut. It was too distant to photograph well, so I didn't bother trying

Four Caspian Gulls were around too. Three first-winters and a second-winter.

First-Winter Caspian Gull

First-Winter Caspian Gull

The Vikings Have Arrived

Over the last week I have seen not one but two Glaucous x Herring Gull hybrids - aka Viking Gulls. Both in the Shawell area.

Both were structurally very similar to Glaucous Gulls - large size, shortish primary projection and large bi-coloured bills. The first one, a first-winter, was a large gull with pale buff upperparts and greyish brown primaries. It had a full greyey brown tail band, which is not that common, but certainly not unprecedented for this hybrid type. The other was a second-winter. When I spotted it it was facing head on and I thought it was a Glaucous, but as it turned sideways on I could see its primaries were not right - too dark.

A Colour-Ringed Glaucous Gull!

He who dares wins!

Today was bitter cold and the light was terrible, but still I headed to Shawell. I had arranged to meet a friend there, so I had to turn up.

I was there first and started to search through the gulls. Initially there was nothing of note, but a juvenile Iceland Gull flew in followed shortly after by a new juvenile Glaucous Gull. The Glaucous Gull was quite a dark individual and obviously different to the three others I've seen this year. The Iceland Gull appeared to the same juvenile that I saw in January.

When Tim arrived the two white-wingers were still there.

Mid-morning I spotted an adult Glaucous Gull and I was surprised to see that it was colour-ringed. Reading the orange ring was very difficult. I knew from the ring that it was a North Thames Gull Group bird. Eventually I managed to read G1NT. It was ringed at Pitsea Landfill Site, Essex in 2015. There are also sightings of this gull from Northamptonshire and Cheshire.