Here we go then, part 2 of my recent trip to the Algarve and after spending a very productive few days on the East side part I picked up my mate Mark and we headed off to the wild West!
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| Sacred Ibis |
First port of call was a hotel in Alvor ...hurragh! Comfy bed, catch up & banter, shower and breakfast in the morning after 4 days rough camping was very welcome for my body and spirits! The Western side of the Algarve is much more rugged than the East with high cliffs and pounding Atlantic seas but around Alvor the landscape is still estuarine and 'saltmarshy' and although wader numbers and species were noticeably less, a morning birdwatch around the area produced some good birds including
Caspian Tern, Siskin, Quail, Whimbrel, Curlew Sandpiper and a rather surprising
Sacred Ibis .... more of an African bird a few have wandered Northwards and established themselves around Iberian landmass.
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Caspian Tern
What no Quail pics?!! Hah, that'll be the day ... I've never seen a Quail in the wild yet, just as well their call is so distinctive! Plenty of Yellow Wagtails around too ... all of the blue headed Iberian race of course and gorgeous as they are it was a talking point that in more than 25 years of foreign birding trips we'd never seen one of our own British race on our travels ... I wonder where they pass through most often? | | Yellow Wagtail (Iberian race) |
After Alvor we headed further West and spent a few days around the Cape St Vincent area, the weather took a huge turn for the worst with rain and poor visibility for much of the time but that didn't seem to deter a small flock of Bee-eaters dropping in (on the campsite we were on at Sagres) and also several Alpine Swifts amongst the Commons that dropped down after a cloudburst. |
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Campsite at Sagres ... during a rare sunny interlude!
Cape St Vincent was a little too touristy for my liking with far too many people making too much noise and taking the same old pictures of the high cliffs there, but with little in the way of birds to see I ended up taking the same!
I did get lucky at a spot further up the coast (3rd of the pics above) with a fast flying male Ring Ouzel beating its way North along the cliff side, so fast I didn't even get the bins on it never mind the camera! Good bird to have. We also had a couple of Great Skuas, stacks of offshore Gannets, Short Toed Eagle, several Auduoins Gulls, Rock Buntings, a single Black Redstart and rather surprisingly 2 Green Woodpeckers flushed from the cliff side all in the same general vicinity, so not a bad haul for a blustery day! Heading back Eastwards towards Faro we stopped off at the Salgados wetlands nr Pera where we had a dashing Hobby chasing waders, 3 Purple Herons in off the sea and our first Reed Warblers an area of good marshland habitat that is sadly threatened by the development of yet another holiday complex. Its an important and unique area on this stretch of coast for breeding and migratory birds such as Flamingoes, Glossy Ibis, Purple Swamp Hen, Ferruginous Duck and Little Bittern, and attracts good numbers of eco tourists anyway without the need for more hotels, especially at a time when hotel occupancy in Portugal is at an all time low ... sheer madness! Both the RSPB and the SPEA (Portugal's equivalent) are campaigning hard to stop this folly and anyone can do their bit by signing the online petition here .... Save Salgados from the Developers Sadly the weather closed in again whilst we were there and I didn't have much chance to get any good bird pics but I did manage a bit of the local flora, and managed to id most ....
 | | Hottentot Fig |
 | | Sandstock |
 | | Cistanche |
 | | Unidentified .... working on it! |
Bit of a nightmare end to the holiday, especially for Mark .... on returning to the car we were dismayed to see that it had been broken into and Mark's travel docs, passport and cash all gone, along with my rucksack! Caused all sorts of chaos for us both but thankfully all but the cash was found by the local police and we can laugh about it now! Here's the promised list of all bird species seen .... quite impressive for 9 days! BIRD SPECIES, ALGARVE: MARCH 21ST – 29TH 2013 : TOTAL SPECIES = 149 Red-legged Partridge Common Quail Common Pheasant Canada Goose Mute Swan Common Shelduck Gadwall Mallard Shoveler Teal Red-crested Pochard Black Scoter Little Grebe Great Crested Grebe Greater Flamingo White Stork Eurasian Spoonbill Sacred Ibis Purple Heron Grey Heron Little Egret Northern Gannet Great Cormorant Shag Lesser Kestrel Common Kestrel Eurasian Hobby Peregrine Falcon Black Kite Black-winged Kite | Short-toed Eagle Western Marsh Harrier Hen Harrier Montague's Harrier Eurasian Sparrowhawk Eurasian Buzzard Purple Gallinule Common Moorhen Common Coot Eurasian Stone Curlew Eurasian Oystercatcher Black-winged Stilt Grey Plover Ringed Plover Little Ringed Plover Kentish Plover Common Snipe Bar-tailed Godwit Black-tailed Godwit Whimbrel Curlew Spotted Redshank Common Redshank Common Greenshank Green Sandpiper Common Sandpiper Ruddy Turnstone Red Knot Sanderling Little Stint | Curlew Sandpiper Dunlin Ruff Common Gull Audouins Gull Black Headed Gull Lesser Black backed Gull Yellow Legged / Herring Gull Mediterranean Gull Caspian Tern Sandwich Tern Great Skua Rock / Feral Pigeon Wood Pigeon Collared Dove Great Spotted Cuckoo Common Cuckoo Little Owl Tawny Owl Alpine Swift Common Swift Pallid Swift Common Kingfisher European Bee-eater Hoopoe Great Spotted Woodpecker Green Woodpecker Great Grey Shrike | Woodchat Shrike Eurasian Jay Common Magpie Azure Winged Magpie Common Jackdaw Carrion Crow Raven Common Chough Great Tit Blue Tit Long Tailed Tit Coal Tit Sand Martin Crag Martin Barn Swallow Red Rumped Swallow Crested Lark Eurasian Skylark Woodlark Zitting Cisticola Cetti's Warbler Grasshopper Warbler Willow Warbler Chiff Chaff Sardinian Warbler Subalpine Warbler Reed Warbler Blackcap Wood Warbler Firecrest Nuthatch | European Starling Spotless Starling Ring Ouzel Song Thrush ?Redwing Eurasian Blackbird European Robin Bluethroat Common Nightingale Black Redstart Common Stonechat Northern Wheatear House Sparrow Spanish Sparrow Common Waxbill Dunnock Yellow Wagtail Grey Wagtail White Wagtail Meadow Pipit Chaffinch Greenfinch Linnet Goldfinch Serin Siskin Corn Bunting Yellowhammer Rock Bunting Reed Bunting |
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