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))

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

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.  

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))

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