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April 2024 – Extremadura, Spain
16th -23rd April 2024 We have had a very happy week immersed in the nature of a wonderful part of Spain, in the company of a small group of like-minded people. Our fellow birders clearly had a huge knowledge and experience of nature. They also had great observational skills from which Wendy and I benefited…
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3rd April 2024 – RHS Garden Rosemoor, Devon
We have spent the last few days in North Devon. It wasn’t a birding trip but on our visit to RHS Garden Rosemoor I did get to see siskins which are not very common where I live in Bristol. I share a few of the other “garden” birds we saw as well as a few…
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31st March 2024 – Aust Warth, Severn Estuary, Gloucestershire
It’s been so wet underfoot that birdwatching has not been my preferred pastime in the last few weeks. I’ve even been tempted to start a blog of other activities and had a go at a visit to a local church (see St Mary’s Berkeley, further up the Severn Estuary). However, I am probably on dodgy…
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6th March 2024 – Armação de Pêra, The Algarve, Portugal
The last day of our holiday in Portugal called for a leisurely walk along the beach at Amação de Pêra. This morning there was some warmth in the sun and it felt even more like spring. Carpobrotus edulis is a ground-creeping plant with succulent leaves in the genus Carpobrotus, native to South Africa. Its common…
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5th March 2024 – Alvor, The Algarve, Portugal
Well, this is definitely my kind of birding. We spent the morning walking along The Passadiços de Alvor, the series of raised walkways that pass through the protected sand dunes of the Ria de Alvor Nature Reserve west of Portimāo. We heard and then saw linnets, crested lark, zitting cisticolas, goldfinch and both male and…
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4th March 2024 – Carvoeiro, Portugal
The spring flowers are already quite abundant along the coast of The Algarve but you can’t help feeling that with a little more warmth of spring there will soon be a riot of colour. Yesterday afternoon ,as we walked a little from our clifftop hotel in Porches-Armação de Pêra, in the Algarve, up above the Senhora da…
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2nd March 2024 – Lagao des Salgados, Portugal
This morning we returned to the same area we had visited on our first day on our birding holiday in Portugal. Today was a very different experience. We made no lists, probably saw fewer birds and certainly took fewer photographs. Yet, we really enjoyed meandering around the site and taking in the various aspects of…
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1st March 2024 – The Algarve, Portugal
Our five day birdwatching tour has now finished and we have been enjoying the slower pace by discovering the locality around our hotel at Praia Senhora da Rocha along the coast from Armação de Pêra. There continue to be opportunities for more nature photographs . Along the coastal path we had close encounters with a…
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28th February 2024 – Castro Verde, Portugal
On our fifth and final day of our birding trip in Portugal we travelled 2 hours north to Castro Verde. The landscape here, on the edges of the steppes, was totally different to what we had seen in The Algarve. It was a different birding experience too when the telescope really came into its own…
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27th February 2024 – Castro Marim, Portugal
For our fourth day of birding we travelled close to the border with Spain. We started birding at Castro Marim and visited the Castro Marim Nature Reserve visitors centre. The highlights here were a Spanish Imperial eagle and a short-toed snake eagle. There were more saltpans at Santa Luzia and then a study in gulls…
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26th February 2024 – Ria Formosa, Portugal
We spent our third day of birding in Portugal east of Faro. We started in the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa near to some disused salt pans. The day started well with good views of two booted eagles. As we walked along the pathway we soon saw a marsh harrier. Further in the distance through…
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24th February 2024 – South West Algarve, Portugal
Our plans for today were changed last minute as the forecast for the beginning of next week was for strong winds on the south west tip of Portugal. It wasn’t too bad today and so the programme was reversed. We started our birding in the port of Sagres on the south west coast of Portugal.…