This is not a Big Year - Pedro´s 2021

[pedro maia]

#45 Mallard

[pedro maia]

And last, but not least, an EBC 

 

#46 Sardinian warbler

[pedro maia]

I think it will be reasonable to think I´ll be able to reach 70/80 on a very good day, maybe in the autumn migration, with help 100 in a day should be possible but with photos I´m not sure, yesterday I missed maybe 5 species I saw but wasn´t able to photograph.

[pedro maia]

5 minutes ago, michael-ibk said:

Hooray Pedro is back in the game. Welcome back my friend, you have been missed. Great "first day" with lots of mouthwatering species for us folks up north here. Lovely Linnet especially. 

 

Thanks Michael, I was struggling to find a way to do this but I think I got it.

 

I´m also pleased with the Linnet picture.

[Galana]

A fantastic come back. Welcome.

Just a small point.

#28 You may have seen a ruddy Sheldduck but you have not photographed a Ruddy Sheldduck.

[pedro maia]

5 minutes ago, Galana said:

A fantastic come back. Welcome.

Just a small point.

#28 You may have seen a ruddy Sheldduck but you have not photographed a Ruddy Sheldduck.

Fixed, I haven’t seen a Ruddy shelduck .

[Soukous]

Welcome to the fray Pedro.

If you get that many every time you go out we're all in trouble.

[pedro maia]

1 hour ago, Soukous said:

Welcome to the fray Pedro.

If you get that many every time you go out we're all in trouble.

Not really, I’m not planning on making a yealy count.

[Dave Williams]

Some excellent birds of which I have only seen, or likely to see a handful.Portugal is currently on our "green list" for foreign travel, I expect you might get a lot of UK visitors this year and consequently I'll wait!!

[pedro maia]

2 hours ago, Dave Williams said:

Some excellent birds of which I have only seen, or likely to see a handful.Portugal is currently on our "green list" for foreign travel, I expect you might get a lot of UK visitors this year and consequently I'll wait!!

 

UK is one of the biggest markets for our tourism industry but I dare saying that most tourists don´t visit the areas of our main birding hotspots, only in the Algarve there may be a coincindence.

[Kitsafari]

are you kidding me? you started birding two days ago and you've got 46 species, many of which I won't see in my part of the world.

I like your shot of that pretty chaffinch. 

 

[pedro maia]

1 hour ago, Kitsafari said:

are you kidding me? you started birding two days ago and you've got 46 species, many of which I won't see in my part of the world.

I like your shot of that pretty chaffinch. 

 

I’m pretty sure that if it wasn’t for the heat you could photograph more than that in one day in Singapore.

 

Here the weather is mild now and I can do most of the day driving, like in a safari .

[Kitsafari]

1 hour ago, pedro maia said:

IHere the weather is mild now and I can do most of the day driving, like in a safari .

 

I'm so envious!

[PeterHG]

So good to see you back here, @pedro maia! And with a lot of very good species, that I would be only to happy to see this year. 

[pedro maia]

It´s good to be back Peter!!

[shazdwn]

Great to see you back @pedro maia. I’m impressed with your total for one day even if you are not 😄

[pedro maia]

I’m pretty sure that if you try it in Darwin you can get a better total.

[Peter Connan]

Welcome back Pedro.

 

A had been wondering where you had gotten to.

[pedro maia]

13 minutes ago, Peter Connan said:

Welcome back Pedro.

 

A had been wondering where you had gotten to.

 

Literally nowhere .

[pedro maia]

Saturday was Global Birding Day, a good excuse for me to go and spend the day in my favourite birding are in Portugal, the area around the town of Castro Verde, in the Alentejo, the Portuguese steppe where some of our coolest species can be found.

 

I left home little after 5.30 and before 7:30 I left the motorway and headed to the first hotspot of the day, there wasn´t much light yet but alonside of the road I took some pictures of some very easy species that can be found anywhere but that count as much as others, even if they don´t produce any kind of excitment.

 

#1 Rock dove

 

#2 European goldfinch

 

#3 Zitting cisticola

[pedro maia]

First destination of the day was the abandoned railway station of Casével where I knew I could find a very cool summer migrant.

 

Little before arriving I had a very good surprise, a species I only saw once and that I wasn´t expecting at all jumped and flew away:

 

#4 Eurasian stone-curlew

 

It´s a pity I can´t take a decent BIF photo...

 

Already in Casével station

 

#5 Common starling

 

#6 Eurasian collared dove

[pedro maia]

It was great to see one the summer migrants that were there

 

#7 European roller

 

I would see the rollers a few more times during the day but they weren´t easy to photograph, very skittish species

 

[pedro maia]

And I found what I was looking for, a whole colony, in the abandoned station and alongside the road to Castro Verde I saw more than 30, I lost count...

 

#8 Lesser Kestrel

 

 

 

 

 

[pedro maia]

Back on the road

 

#9 Black-winged kite

 

#10 Iberian grey shrike

 

[pedro maia]

A stop in a pond

#11 Great crested grebe

 

#12 Gadwall

 

#13 Great egret

 

#14 Barn swallow

 

#15 Common house martin

 

Later I made a very dumb thing, I accidentaly deleted all the pictures from the P900 (if it happened with the dslr it would have been desaster), I lost a few species, all common, of one of them I had this crppay picture in dslr:

 

#16 Egyptian goose

 

In the distance,  another raptor:

 

#17 Booted eagle