A trip to Portugal’16

This year, my yearly venture to Portugal was slightly earlier than usual and was the first time I had gone without my mum!

Day 1:

This was not actually our first day but it was the first day that myself and Espen were together and the first day of birding. We stayed around the Villa in the morning and kick started our Portugal list. The usual suspects of Reed Bunting, Serin, White Wagtail, Cattle Egrets and

Stonechats were around but some of the good stuff made an appearance aswell with Black Redstart, Booted Eagle, Red-rumped swallow, Corn Bunting and Rock Sparrows all welcome additions to the list.

In the afternoon, we visited Lagos which is a small town just to the east of where we were staying. There is an amazing steak house in Lagos right on the harbour and I had to take Espen there, they serve my absolute favourite steak! In Lagos, there is a small area where White Stork come to nest and they provide amazing views, we also saw a large number of Yellow Legged Gulls in all different plumages where myself and Esp could get our eye on some features, I’m not great with gulls so any additional features really do help me!

Day 2:

Day two saw us venture an hour east to Olhao, to visit Ria Farmosa Natural Nature Reserve. This is a place that I have always wanted to visit, we had only just arrived when Esp spotted some Crested Tits feeding in some pine trees, a lifer for the both of us! The usual Portuguese delights were seen: Zitting Cisticola, Sardinian Warbler, Hoopoe and Pallid Swift. There were a couple of species which I hadn’t seen in Portugal yet but managed to see them here, things such as Sandwich Tern, Whimbrel and Cetti Warbler. An experience for us both was seeing a small group of Greater Flamingo feeding on a pool!

On the way home we took a detour. We were given some gen by a fellow birder about a place to see some of our targets, so on the way home we visited Quinta de Lago golf course. There was a very frustrating Spoonbill feeding some distance away, we noticed that it had a leg flag and colour rings but couldn’t pick out the colours! The bird flew closer and we jotted down the colour combination and Esp sent off the information, so waiting to find out! Highlights from our visit were Marsh Harrier, Barn Owl and Purple Swamp-Hen! I also saw a Black-Headed Weaver which Esp missed.

Day 3:

Day three was a rather quiet day, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t eventful! We visited one of my favourite places in Portugal, Cape st Vincent in Sagres. Seawatching was somewhat lacking, we only managed to see Gannet! The rocks surrounding the lighthouse were definitely the highlights. A stunning male Black Redstart jumped around in front of us, proving myself and Esp with great photography opportunities, a female Blue Rock Thrush was sat on the lighthouse and a Porpoise was swimming around in the water below. The definite highlight of the day, and a close second to the overall trip highlight; was seeing an Alpine Accentor! I had struggled to see this species for almost four years now, Esp had got onto the bird and I jumped up and got onto the bird, we only got brief views and couldn’t get a photo but nevertheless it was a great experience!

Day 4:

We started the day by waking up at 6am ready to hit to road to visit the wonderful people at A Rocha. I love visiting the place and the people are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and so knowledgeable! We had the chance to help run the ringing session and got to show visitors the process of ringing, I had the chance to ring some great highlights for me which included Firecrest and Spanish Sparrow! 

After our visit to A Rocha and the nets were closed, we were given a site to try for some amazing species aswell as one of the species of owl I was desperate to see: Eagle Owl! The site was outstanding! We arrived and we greeted by raptors: Peregrine, Short-Toed Eagle, Marsh Harrier, Booted Eagle and Buzzard. We ventured down a little track to a small pool where the majority of the birds were gathering around, Esp got onto a Adult male Bluethroat which I only saw the back end of, around 100 Common Waxbills were flying around the field and pool. We had planned to stay until it got dark, so around 6pm we got into position next to a building to disguise ourselves so the Owl couldn’t spot us. The roosting birds were amazing! c150 Cattle Egrets, 3 Great White Egret, c50 Glossy Ibis, and a large group of Corn Buntings came over our heads. As it was just approaching dusk, a Short-Eared Owl came buzzing around the tiny building we were huddled by, the bird came so close to it, it was an amazing experience! The experience which I will never forget came a few minutes afterwards, we were just discussing how small the SEO must be compared to the Eagle owl when the bird popped up on the Telephone line we were focused on, it was massive! We spent almost an hour just mesmerised by this bird, it was preening and calling which made the experience even better.

Day 5:

The last major bird driven day was up north to Castro Verde. We visited Alcaria to have a scout for Black-Bellied Sandgrouse which we failed to see, but instead, we caught up with Great Bustard, Calandra and Crested Lark.  We only spotted for a little while but moved onto a small village called Alvares to look for Eagles, after waiting for some time with no luck, Esp had got onto an eagle and just waiting for it to come into a space where we could pinpoint and focus the scope onto it instead of using binoculars. After watching it for a couple of minutes, we concluded it was a Spanish Imperial Eagle! I went to write it down in my book (I suck at remembering sightings!) and Esp called me over saying he had another Spanish Imp! What initially was a slow start, turned into a great time with seeing these Eagles. The next and final stop before making the 2 hour journey back to the villa, was to a small town just north of Castro Verde where we were to visit some ruins where apparently there was a Lesser Kestrel colony. It took us some time to locate the ruins given that most of the buildings looked run down but having the ruin’s name did come in handy! We parked up and headed closer to the ruins where a couple of Kestrel sp were flying above the building, on closer inspection they were Lesser Kestrels! We had successfully added more of our targets onto our lists, and to top things off, on the way home we had a group of Black-Bellied Sandgrouse fly in the fly next to us which we pulled over for!

Full Trip List: