Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos

Category: Blog

  • 11th April 2025 – Olhão, Portugal

    11th April 2025 – Olhão, Portugal

    We were rather devastated yesterday when, setting off for a walk around the salt pans at Olhão right next to our hotel, we found the path had been closed by a new construction project. We abandoned our plans and decided to take the ferry to Culatra, one of the islands in the Ria Formosa.

    There were limited birding opportunities but from the ferry we saw a distant colony of spoonbills and egrets.

    Spoonbills and egrets

    On Culatra there were plenty of yellow legged gulls and lesser black-backed gulls as well some Audouin gulls.

    Audouin gull

    On the return journey we could see oystercatchers and a small flock of common ringed plovers which easily overtook the ferry.

    Oystercatchers

    Common ringed plover

    Today we managed to find a way around the blocked path without too much of a detour and, despite the disappointing cloudy conditions, enjoyed a very enjoyable walk around the salt pans. We were well rewarded with plenty of birds and a pleasant walk.

    White stork with nesting material

    Little egret over the salt pans

    Ruddy turnstone

    On several of the salt pans there were large number of waders

    A shelduck stands proud of the grey plover, dunlin, sanderlings and ruddy turnstones

    Kentish plover

    The first of several western yellow wagtails which we saw around the salt pans

    A black-winged stilt

    Common ringed plover

    Crabs everywhere

    A view inland across the salt pans

    A little tern behind the dunlin

    Common greenshank

    Common greenshank in flight

    3 more western yellow wagtails appeared

    Western yellow wagtail

    Sardinian warbler

    Sardinian warbler

    Little tern

    These looked larger than dunlin and I wondered if they were curlew sandpiper

    View back across the salt pans towards Olhão

    White stork

    White stork with mini snack

    White stork building a nest on a chimney tower

    The white storks should be pretty safe up there

  • 9th April 2025 – Fuzeta, The Algarve, Portugal

    9th April 2025 – Fuzeta, The Algarve, Portugal

    After a few glorious weeks of wall to wall blue skies (but with fresh winds) in England we have arrived in the eastern end of the Algarve in Portugal where it is much warmer but the skies are a little greyish and the forecast is unsettled.

    From a birding perspective it was very exciting yesterday evening to sit having our first beer on the front at Olhão (where we are staying) and to see a 100 plus swifts soaring overhead. Their screeching was quite a din but it made us feel that summer had arrived.

    Today we took a taxi to the birding area of the Salinas da Fuzeta, a complex of salt pans just north of the town of Fuzeta, to the east of Olhão. The salt pans are part of the Parque Natural Ria Formosa.

    It was quite an exciting start as the first bird we saw was a bee-eater; a beautiful bird that we have only seen on a few occasions.

    Bee-eater

    Not one but two!

    Along the salt pans there were plenty of waders but no greater flamingos which we had hoped to see here.

    Kentish plover and a sanderling

    Common ringed plover

    Common greenshank

    Little stint

    Pied avocet

    A mixture of waders for the experts to identify

    Black-winged stilts

    A distant Caspian tern

    Avocets doing what they do at this time of the year

    Kentish plover

    A western yellow wagtail

    The flora around here was also very attractive.

    As we walked into town there were hirondines everywhere.

    A house Martin building a nest in a street lamp

    After a wonderful seafood lunch on the front at À do Rui (a top recommendation from a friend) we had little appetite for any more birdwatching and all we saw was a common sandpiper on the shores of the Ria Formosa.

    A common sand piper on the shores of the Ria Formosa

    The lifeboat station at Fuzeta

  • 26th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    26th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    Lovely bright colours in the park this morning on our morning stroll with our first peacock butterfly of the season and the (very) common kingfisher..

    Peacock butterfly

    Common kingfisher

    Common kingfisher

    Common kingfisher
  • 25th March 2025 – RSPB Ham Wall, Avalon Marshes, Somerset

    25th March 2025 – RSPB Ham Wall, Avalon Marshes, Somerset

    I stopped off at Cheddar Reservoir on my way to Ham Wall with the hope of seeing some black-necked grebe which had been reported there. A grey wagtail was all I achieved for my efforts which involved a major detour by road and then another on foot. It was also very cold by the water and so not a great success.

    Grey wagtail

    A rather coquettish grey wagtail

    At Ham Wall there was much more to see with plentiful views of marsh harriers and a glossy ibis. The best, though, was the booming of bitterns all the way round. Disappointingly there were no sightings. However, I did get a glimpse of a common crane but I was too slow to get a photo.

    A cheeky chiff chaff at Ham Wall

    A great crested grebe – can’t help thinking of Yorkshire terriers

    Tufted ducks

    No reed show from these two great crested grebes

    Tufted ducks over the water

    A male marsh harrier over the reeds

    Marsh harrier

    Marsh harrier closer up

    The same marsh harrier

    Male and female marsh harriers

    Eurasian teal

    Glossy ibis

    Glossy ibis

    Glossy ibis

    And just as I was leaving the sun came out and lit up this male chaffinch
  • 21st March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    21st March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    There wasn’t much about in the park today, but who’s complaining?

    Grey heron

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher
    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher … and away …

    Grey heron

  • 16th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    16th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    Kingfisher

    And who says that birds in the UK are only LBJs (little brown jobs)?

    Kingfisher

    It’s definitely a good time of the year to see kingfishers and robins in our local park. This morning the sun shone brightly but it was still very cold. No reason to complain though with these bright little birds to lift your spirits, as they always do.

    Robin

    Robin

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    Kingfisher

    And then its was Sunday brunch time.

  • 11th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    11th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    Kingfisher in the gloom

    The kingfisher was very obliging again this morning as we walked around the park. Unfortunately, the sun was not so obliging.

    Male kingfisher

    Kingfisher on a rusty chair frame

    Slightly different pose

    Rear view

    Back in the gloom

    The one oddity was a pink footed goose at the lake!

  • 9th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    9th March 2025 – Eastville Park, Bristol

    We had an enjoyable gentle Sunday morning stroll around our local park in the sunshine chatting to new and old acquaintances.

    We were well rewarded with a fleeting visit of a male kingfisher who stayed only long enough for me to take 3 frames (although everyone told us that the male and female had been around for ages. I also missed a treecreeper that everyone else seemed to have seen.

    Male kingfisher

    I think robins are about my spotting ability and there were plenty of those to choose from.

    Robin – one of half a dozen we saw

    I like this pose

    Same robin as above
    They do like to show off

    Around the lake there were lots of cormorants. The mind boggles to think that they eat 30 times their body weight of fish in a day. That doesn’t bode well for the fish in the lake, although there always seem to be plenty there.

    Cormorants above the lake

    Canada goose on the lake

  • 5th March 2025 – WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire

    5th March 2025 – WWT Slimbridge, Gloucestershire

    A lovely morning spent photographing birds at Slimbridge. Nothing remarkable except for nature itself and the warmth of the sun on our backs.

    Statue of Sir Pater Scott who established the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust  in 1946 and helped found the World Wide Fund for Nature,

    Northern pintail

    Greylag goose

    Common crane

    Mute swan taking off

    Eurasian curlew

    Eurasian teal

    Common crane

    Avocets standing out from the wigeon and the shovelers

    White fronted geese in front of the barnacle geese

    More barnacle geese arriving above the Canada geese

    Greenfinch

    Goldfinch

    Long-tailed tit

    Blue tit

    Coal tit

    Common chaffinch

    Robin

  • 25th February 2025 – Catcott Lows, Avalon Marshes, Somerset

    25th February 2025 – Catcott Lows, Avalon Marshes, Somerset

    It was very wet on the Avalon Marshes today and there was a fresh wind but, thankfully, the light was very good. I couldn’t face getting muddy so I hunkered down in the hide at Catcott Lows and enjoyed seeing a variety of birds at quite close quarters.

    The rarest bird was a spotted redshank and it was a toss up between lapwings, wigeon and shovelers for the most prolific numbers.

    The spotted redshank was difficult to see at first

    … and then it took to the air

    … and was almost showing off

    There were distant marsh harriers, a red kite and a peregrine which caused constant consternation and allowed me lots of opportunities to take photos of birds in flight.

    My favourites, however, were the great white egrets which are quite common here.

    Great white egret

    Great white egret photo bombing a little egret

    Northern shoveler

    Wigeon having a snooze

    Wigeon

    Lapwing up close

    Lapwing in flight

    Wigeon taking to the wing

    Northern shoveler in flight

    The peregrine was responsible for all of this

    Great white egret

    Great white egret

    Great white egret

    Not very often you see a single starling in these parts. I did see huge flocks of them as I drove here.

    Just had to get a silhouette of Glastonbury Tor in somewhere

    I won’t bore you with the other 900 photos I took during the day!

  • 13th February 2025 – Ria Formosa Nature Reserve, The Algarve, Portugal

    13th February 2025 – Ria Formosa Nature Reserve, The Algarve, Portugal

    There is a roundabout just outside our hotel with a statue of a seahorse. There is the largest population of seahorses in the world in the Ria Formosa Natural Park.

    The seahorse roundabout

    On our last full day here in Portugal we decided to revisit the Ria Formosa Nature Reserve at Quinto de Marim. At the entrance to the park there is a poster reminding us of the fragility of the seahorses in nature with the population diminished by 90% in the last 15 years.

    On our boat trip earlier in the week we had seen buoys protecting the area where the seahorses exist.

    We had much better light on our visit today but the tide was very low and the mudflats were almost empty of waders. However, we did have a very good view of this plover below which, according to one ID app, is a semi-palmated plover. However, it is more likely a non-breeding adult common ringed plover. In fact, having studied several sources, the slight webbing between only one of the toes convinces me that this is definitely a common ringed plover

    Semi-palmated plover or more likely a non-breeding adult common ringed plover

    Stonechat

    The flora was even more beautiful after the rain and with quite warm sunshine

    Oxalis pes-caprae has all sorts of common names, including slender yellow wood sorrel

    The mudflats were empty of birdlife but it was great walk

    The tidal mill with very little bird life today

    Mainly cattle egret with a few little egrets at the freshwater pond

    Chiffchaffs and/or willow warblers were putting on quite a display at the freshwater pond – difficult to say which when they weren’t singing

    Little grebe

    Teal

    Teal and shoveler

    Terrapins

    Lupins have appeared in flower after the rain

    … and these beautiful crocus-leaved romulea

    Iberian magpie

    Iberian magpie

    And saving the best to last, just as we were leaving the park a Eurasian hoopoe

    Eurasian hoopoe

    And then back to Olhão for a celebratory last lunch – although, we didn’t really need an excuse.

  • 12th February 2025 – Estoi, The Algarve, Portugal

    12th February 2025 – Estoi, The Algarve, Portugal

    This morning we had a non-birding trip to the pretty little town of Estoi, about 10 kilometres north of Olhão. There were three interesting tourist attractions: the Matriz de Estoi Church (which we only visited briefly as there was a service on); the Palácio de Estoi (a 19th Century Neo-Rococo styled palace, now converted into a luxury posada hotel, whose beautiful ornamental gardens are open to the public; and the nearby Ruínas Romanas de Milreu, the best preserved Roman ruins in southern Portugal.

    The Matriz de Estoi Church

    El Palacio de Estoi

    The orange and lemon groves

    Although it was a non-birding day we did have a very good view of a European hoopoe in the gardens and white storks flying high overhead.

    A traditional Portuguese farmhouse (Casa Rural) was built on top of the Roman Villa

    Inside the Roman villa

    The temple was one of the earliest churches in Portugal , and has been used as a Roman temple, a church and a mosque, but is now a ruin

    There were many fine mosaics

    Of course there had to be a bath house

    The beautiful spring flowers are just everywhere in the countryside at present

    And they are a feature of town gardens too