And who says that birds in the UK are only LBJs (little brown jobs)?
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.
And then its was Sunday brunch time.
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.
I think robins are about my spotting ability and there were plenty of those to choose from.
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.
A lovely morning spent photographing birds at Slimbridge. Nothing remarkable except for nature itself and the warmth of the sun on our backs.
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.
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.
I won’t bore you with the other 900 photos I took during the day!
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.
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
And then back to Olhão for a celebratory last lunch – although, we didn’t really need an excuse.
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.
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.
Today’s forecast was always looking pretty dire, with torrential rain supposedly lasting all day. As it turned out we did have torrential rain all morning (which allowed me to catch up with blogs) but it abated for a good 2 hours at lunch time and we made the most of it with a walk into town to get a spot of lunch. The rain returned in the afternoon but again stopped in time for us to get a late afternoon walk around the Salinas de Olhão. We were well rewarded with a massive number of birds in decent light, the best of which were five spoonbills. And so it wasn’t too bad a day, although we had to cope with pretty muddy boots.
We took an Uber to Quinta de Marim, a few kilometres to the east of Olhão.
Quinta de Marim (or Centro Educação Ambiental de Marim) is a beautiful estate with many different habitats that attract birds. A 3 km trail takes you through various ecosystems – dunes, salt marshes, pine woodlands. There is a visitors’ centre and a couple of hides at the edge of the marsh, one looking across the mudflats and another looking over a fresh water pond.
The dull weather was rather disappointing for photographs but it was still quite warm (17C) and we didn’t need coats. The visit was not at all disappointing.
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In the late afternoon on our return to Olhão we had another walk around the Salinas de Olhão.
We made the most of the sunny and calm conditions to take a three hour trip around the Ria Formosa lagoon, located in the Algarve, in southern Portugal.
In 2010, the lagoon was recognised as one of the country’s seven natural wonders and the series of barrier islands connects to the sea through six inlets, one of which is artificial to allow easier access to the port of Faro.
We spent half an hour on the tiny island of Armona, just enough time to visit the village with its charming minute houses which are mainly used as holiday homes and to savour the tropical feel of the island.
We then moved on to the larger island of Culatra which has a permanent population of about 1,000 people who are mainly involved in the fishing trade.
The island has an extensive sandy beach on its ocean side to which we made our way across the protected sand dunes on a raised wooden walkway. It was warm enough to sit on the beach next to a bar and enjoy a beer.
As the tide was high most of the sandbanks were submerged and so, apart from gulls and cormorants, we saw very little bird life, except on the return journey we saw a small colony of spoonbills.
In the evening we had another walk around the Salinas de Olhão, next to our hotel.
A two hour flight from Bristol, a 15 minute transfer from Faro and we are transported into what seems like another world and, in particular, a different climate.
On the first morning of our stay, within a 2 minute walk from our hotel, we are strolling amongst nature in the Salinas de Olhão with colourful wild flowers, huge numbers of waders, lots of small passerines flitting around almost at our feet and with the sun on our backs.
I could go on – there was so much to see.
There were very few people out and about today and I didn’t stay long as, having caught everything there was to catch in January, I was “taking it steady”.
I didn’t even bother going out again after lunch as it was raining and I had had a very pleasant lunch break in the company of a couple I had met in Cyprus at Christmas and who live in Brentwood in Essex (on the other side of the country) and who just happened to be in the Avalon Marshes Centre at the same time as me. “Small world”, as they say.
Just a few photos to show I did have a camera with me.
It’s been a slow start to the year for bird photography as we have been “confined to barracks” by chest infections and very cold weather; on the few opportunities we have had to get out and about I have not felt like lugging a camera with me. And so, here we are with almost half of January gone and my first offering.
Slimbridge is a fairly safe bet as it is teeming with birds at this time of year. The big attraction is the Bewick Swans, the smallest of the swans that regularly winter here, having come from their breeding grounds in Siberia. I bet they have not been complaining about the cold as much as I have!
It was a fairly grey morning but with lots of large birds flying around I had enough photo opportunities to keep me happy.
There were also a couple of the larger Whooper swans there too.
Martin's Bird Blog & Nature Photos 