All quiet on the western front - PM 2023

[pedro maia]

BIF115, Pomarine jaeger (Stercorarius pomarinus)

 

My problems with light are obvious in this picture.

Edited September 5, 2023 by pedro maia

[pedro maia]

BIF116, Parasitic jaeger (Stercorarius parasiticus)

 

[pedro maia]

BIF117, Great shearwater (Ardenna gravis)

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by pedro maia

[pedro maia]

BIF118, Sabine's gull (Xema sabini)

 

 

Sabine´s are really beautiful gulls.

[pedro maia]

BIF119, Common tern (Sterna hirundo)

 

 

 

[pedro maia]

BIF120, Black tern (Chlidonias niger)

[pedro maia]

And to finnish, a totally new species for me:

 

BIF121 (PT303, W713) Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea)

 

[TonyQ]

You did really well on that pelagic trip

[Galana]

An olde English saying "Never mind the quality, see the numbers."

Nothing to be ashamed of in your pelagic collection. I would be envious of all of them

[pedro maia]

11 hours ago, Galana said:

An olde English saying "Never mind the quality, see the numbers."

Nothing to be ashamed of in your pelagic collection. I would be envious of all of them

 

A total of 24 species were seen (I missed a couple), that´s a very solid number for a pelagic trip.

[Kitsafari]

all caught up. beautiful BIFs of the terns!

[Peter Connan]

Some really tough BIF's pulled of very well Pedro!

[pedro maia]

It´s been quiet here but we´re entering the best time of the year for rarities, the first one is a vagrant from the Americas and a few of them were seen in the past couple of weeks in different spots, one (actually 2 but I only had a glimpse of one) was close to Alcochete, that´s 45m from home, I went there a few times but could only catch it flying away, not the best picture though...

 

BIF122 (PT304, W714) Pectoral sandpiper (Calidris melanotos)

 

Anyway, last Saturday I went to Lagoa dos Salgados, in the Algarve (my first time there, one of the best birding spots in Portugal) and saw another individual, this one couldn´t care less about our presence:

 

 

[pedro maia]

The sandpiper wasn´t the reason for us to go to the Algarve, that reason was a mega-rarity that had all the birding comunity very excited, during last week there was a procession of birders going South to see it (the weather wasn´t great, cloudy and rainy but Saturday was my only chance to go there).

 

PT305, W715 Pacific golden plover (Pluvialis fulva)

 

[Dave Williams]

An excellent pelagic trip and what would have been a few lifers for me! The count coming along nicely too!

[michael-ibk]

Congrats on two super-special birds Pedro!

[BRACQUENE]

Congratulations with the birds on your pelagic trip ! 

[Kitsafari]

congrats on the special birds - may i ask why the Pacific golden plover is a rarity there? they're common migrants in Asia. I always thought - in my very limited knowledge!  - they are distributed around the world, but maybe i thought wrong! 

[pedro maia]

3 hours ago, Kitsafari said:

congrats on the special birds - may i ask why the Pacific golden plover is a rarity there? they're common migrants in Asia. I always thought - in my very limited knowledge!  - they are distributed around the world, but maybe i thought wrong! 

 

I don´t know why but the fact is that in Portugal there were only a couple of records prior to this one.

 

We have the Pluvialis apricaria, that winters here, and then there´s the Pluvialis dominica, a vagrant from the Americas and a rarity here, but not as rare as the Pluvialis fulva, which is common for you.

[pedro maia]

Last Saturday I went to Sagres, it´s migration time so even if I was never really successful there, as the birds tend to pass quite high, I gave it another chance and it turned out to be an excellent day, with some cool sightings, including two lifers.

 

BIF123 (PT306, W716) Richard's pipit (Anthus richardi)

 

 

I wasn´t able to do better than this...

Edited October 9, 2023 by pedro maia

[pedro maia]

PT307, W717 Eurasian scops owl (Otus scops)

Owls are allways cool, now there´s just one that occurs in Portugal that I´m yet to see.

[pedro maia]

And now a few only for the BIF count:

 

BIF124, European honey buzzard (Pernis apivorus)

 

 

 

[pedro maia]

BIF125, Black stork (Ciconia nigra)

 

 

[pedro maia]

BIF126, Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus)

[pedro maia]

BIF127, Peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus)

Quite distant.

 

We also saw other raptors, like Bonelli´s eagle and Hobby, but to distant for pictures.