Wednesday 23 April 2014

The Portuguese Roundup

As ever, my recent trip to Portugal was a blinder. I love the relaxed atmosphere, the warm welcome I always receive, the tasty grub, agreeable temperature and the fantastic birds.

On this occasion I was invited to speak at and run urban birding workshops at the 2014 Portuguese Birdfair  Observaria Estarreja some two hours north of Lisbon.
 TUB waxing lyrical
I also spent some time in the Alentejo region - my favourite part of Portugal where I indulged in all sorts of avian goodies such as displaying Great Bustards and surprisingly large numbers of Black-bellied Sandgrouse.

The Birdfair was a success and despite the grey clouds and occasional dim light we still managed to see a host of great birds. I even had a lifer in the aural shape of a singing and calling Iberian Chiffchaff.
 Purple Heron
 Red-rumped Swallow
 European Bee-eaters
 Female House Sparrow
 Black-eared Wheatear
 Male Western Subalpine Warbler

Calandra Lark


Complete bird list


Great Crested Grebe
Dabchick
Cormorant
Cattle Egret
Little Egret
Great Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
White Stork
Glossy Ibis
Spoonbill
Greater Flamingo
Mallard
Gadwall
Griffon Vulture
Black Vulture
Osprey
Golden Eagle
Iberian Imperial Eagle
Short-toed Eagle
Booted Eagle
Bonelli’s Eagle
Black Kite
Marsh Harrier
Montagu’s Harrier
Common Buzzard
Sparrowhawk
Black-winged Kite
Kestrel
Lesser Kestrel
Red-legged Partridge
((Quail))
Moorhen
Coot
Great Bustard
Little Bustard
Black-winged Stilt
Stone Curlew
Collared Pratincole
Little Ringed Plover
Ringed Plover
Kentish Plover
Grey Plover
Turnstone
Dunlin
Common Sandpiper
Greenshank
Black-tailed Godwit
Whimbrel
Black-headed Gull
Yellow-legged Gull
Lesser Black-back
Little Tern
Black-bellied Sandgrouse
Feral Pigeon
Wood Pigeon
Collared Dove
Turtle Dove
Great Spotted Cuckoo
Little Owl
Swift
Pallid Swift
Hoopoe
Kingfisher
Bee-eater
Roller
((Green Woodpecker – sharpie))
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Skylark
Crested Lark
Thekla Lark
Calandra Lark
Sand Martin
Crag Martin
Swallow
Red-rumped Swallow
Tawny Pipit
White Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail – iberiae?
Grey Wagtail
Wren
Robin
((Nightingale))
Black-eared Wheatear
Whinchat
Stonechat
Blackbird
Blackcap
Sardinian Warbler
Western Subalpine Warbler
Dartford Warbler
Zitting Cisticola
Savi’s Warbler
Cetti’s Warbler
((Reed Warbler))
((Great Reed Warbler))
Common Chiffchaff
((Iberian Chiffchaff))
Great Tit
Blue Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Iberian Grey Shrike
Woodchat Shrike
Azure-winged Magpie
Black-billed Magpie
Jay
Jackdaw
Carrion Crow
Raven
Spotless Starling
House Sparrow
Tree Sparrow
Spanish Sparrow
Chaffinch
Linnet
Goldfinch
Greenfinch
Serin
Reed Bunting
Rock Bunting
Corn Bunting
Common Waxbill
Yellow-crowned Weaver

Species list – 128
Lifers         - 1

((heard))

Monday 14 April 2014

Portugal in bird pictures

Portugal has some damn good birds!
 European Roller
 Whinchat
 Black Kite
 White Stork
 Black-winged Stilt
 White Stork carrying nest material
 House Martin constructing its nest
 House Martins collecting mud
A displaying male Spanish Sparrow

Sunday 6 April 2014

Scrubs update

It's April and this has got to be the best month to be trampling the sacred grounds of The Scrubs, my beleagured local patch. My early spring wanderings here are due to change, almost certainly for the worst, once work commences on the HS2 and London Underground stations that are to be built immediately north of my patch. No doubt some of that building work will spill over onto the site. I imagine that I may have just one, perhaps two springs left before it's all change.

Anyway, the past few weeks have brought in two Wheatears, up to eight Blackcaps holding territory and around five singing Chiffchaffs. Many of the resident birds are in full song including Song Thrushes, Dunnock, Wrens and Robins. I even watched the latter species courtship feeding recently. Three days ago I recorded a flyby male Ring Ouzel that showed itself for the briefest of moments before heading high to the north.

Today, we had our first Swallows that swept low over the football pitches as they headed west into the grey, rain laden horizon. I also came across the below black-backed gull. At first I thought that I was looking at an adult Baltic Gull given its small size compared to the attendant Herring Gulls. 

Baltic Gulls(Larus fuscus fuscus) are seen by most authorities as a northern subspecies of the more familiar Lesser Black-back (L.l graellsii) whilst others see them as a completely seperate species. The main differences are that fuscus has a black mantle that matches its black wingtips while graellsii has a mantle that is midway in hue between a Herring Gull and a Great Black back (which itself is as black-backed as fuscus). Thus, graellsii has a much darker slate grey back than a Herring Gull and the wingtips are discernably darker as they are black. The other notable difference is that fuscus has a slimmer more elegant carriage than graellsii, a feature made more prominent by the former's longer wings whose tips extend beyond the end of the tail - more so than graellsii.

Confused?

Just wait until you try to start deciphering the mottled brown immature birds. Anyway, back to the bird that I spied on the football pitches. I was seriously thinking Baltic Gull until I noticed that my bird had pink legs and quite prominent white spots on its primaries. The bird was indeed a Great Black-back albeit a smallish one - perhaps a female. Great Black-backs have pink legs as opposed to the Lesser Black-back's yellow pins. Also, Great Black-backs normally have more white spotting (or mirrors) on their wingtips than their smaller congenor.
 Great Black-back amongst 2nd summer Herring Gulls
Note the slightly bigger size
It's always worth looking at every bird you come across, even if it is in the middle of the concrete jungle. I went home after seeing the Great Black-back to pore over a couple of books to remind myself of its characteristics. Always be open to learning more about the birds that you often take for granted.  

Saturday 5 April 2014

Champions of the Flyways Bird Race pt 2 plus my Israeli list

White Wagtail
The Champions of the Flyways Bird Race was organised by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel. The whole thing was steered by the energetic and all around nice guy Jonathan Meyrav with the help of his colleagues. The race featured 24 competing teams of birders from Israel, Britian, Georgia and the US racing around Eilat and the surrounding Negev Desert trying to identify as many species as possible over a 24 hour period.

To cut a long and sweaty story short, my team ended up with a very respectable 140 species. The winners were The Palestine Sunbirders on 169. Second were the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology e-birders on 165. Third were The Digital Stringers on 165 - the highest ranking British team.
 The Media Birders - (L-R) Stephen Moss, Tim Appleton & TUB

Assembled teams awaiting an evening visit from Lichtenstein's Sandgrouse coming in to drink.
Eilat is an amazing region for birding and the cause for this brilliant bird race is also very very worthy. 

Please donate here: - http://www.champions-of-the-flyway.com/ to help protect migrant birds from illegal hunting.

My Eilat and environs bird list

((Little Grebe))
Brown Booby
Cormorant
((Bittern))
Night Heron
Cattle Egret
Squacco Heron
Little Egret
Great Egret
Western Reef Egret
Grey Heron
Purple Heron
White Stork
Glossy Ibis
Spoonbill
Greater Flamingo
Shelduck
Egyptian Goose
Mallard
Pintail
Shoveler
Wigeon
Teal
Garganey
Griffon Vulture
Egyptian Vulture
Osprey
Steppe Eagle
Booted Eagle
Short-toed Eagle
Black Kite
Marsh Harrier
Hen Harrier
Steppe Buzzard
Sparrowhawk
Kestrel
Barbary Falcon
Sand Partridge
Chukar
Quail
Little Crake
Moorhen
Coot
Avocet
Black-winged Stilt
Stone Curlew
Collared Pratincole
Little Ringed Plover
Ringed Plover
Kentish Plover
Greater Sand Plover
Spur-winged Plover
Dunlin
Temminck’s Stint
Little Stint
Wood Sandpiper
Green Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Redshank
Spotted Redshank
Greenshank
Marsh Sandpiper
Black-tailed Godwit
Snipe
Red-necked Phalarope
Ruff
Black-headed Gull
Slender-billed Gull
White-eyed Gull
Heuglin’s Gull
Lesser Black-back Gull (fuscus)
Sandwich Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Common Tern
Crowned Sandgrouse
Lichtenstein’s Sandgrouse
Feral Pigeon
Namaqua Dove
Collared Dove
Laughing Dove
Barn Owl
((Scops Owl))
Swift
Pallid Swift
Alpine Swift
Hoopoe
Common Kingfisher
White-throated Kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
Bee-eater
Little Green Bee-eater
Wryneck
Crested Lark
Short-toed Lark
Desert Lark
Sand Martin
Rock Martin
Swallow
Red-rumped Swallow
House Martin
Tawny Pipit
Richard’s Pipit
Water Pipit
Tree Pipit
Red-throated Pipit
White Wagtail
Yellow Wagtail (flava & feldegg)
Citrine Wagtail
Nightingale
Bluethroat
Common Redstart
Northern Wheatear
Isabelline Wheatear
Black-eared Wheatear
Mourning Wheatear
White-crowned Black Wheatear
Desert Wheatear
Blackstart
Pied Bush Chat
Song Thrush
Blackbird
Rock Thrush
Scrub Warbler
Graceful Prinia
Blackcap
Common Whitethroat
Lesser Whitethroat
Eastern Orphean Warbler
Ruppell’s Warbler
Reed Warbler
Great Reed Warbler
Eastern Olivaceous Warbler
Wood Warbler
Eastern Bonelli’s Warbler
Chiffchaff
((Great Tit))
Woodchat Shrike
Masked Shrike
White-spectacled Bulbul
Palestine Sunbird
Arabian Babbler
Hooded Crow
House Crow
Brown-necked Raven
Common Myna
Tristram’s Starling
House Sparrow
Spanish Sparrow
Greenfinch
Ortolan Bunting

151 species

11 lifers

((Heard))


Wednesday 2 April 2014

The Champions of the Flyways Bird Race pt 1

A selection of the birds we encountered on our bird race.
 An Osprey preturbs a passing flock of Feral Pigeons
 Osprey
 Tristram's Starling
 Laughing Dove
 Eastern Olivaceous Warbler
 Black-eared and Isabelline Wheatears
 Green Sandpiper
 Spotted Redshank with a Marsh Sandpiper
 Griffon Vulture
 Hen Harrier
A colour-ringed Houbara Bustard of unknown provenance