Spring in Southern Portugal by Andy Oliver

1.  A brief introduction

2.  Sites visited and birding highlights

3.  Species trip list

4.  Summary

To commemorate a couple of notable birthdays my father and I decided to take a foreign birding holiday in 2002 and settled on a Naturetrek holiday to Southern Portugal.  We had two bases for the week, both small, comfortable family run hotels.  The first was in Mertola,  a medieval hilltop town on the Guadiana river inland from the coast and the second at Carapateria on the west coast just north of Cape St Vincent. 

In all the tour recorded 122 species for the week with the usual combination of a couple of minor disappointments and one or two unexpected surprises.  The main feature of the week was undoubtedly the cool, showery weather brought in by predominantly stiff North Westerlies.  This was probably the main reason for the low warbler count in our total, with a single Chiffchaff and one brief glimpse of a probable Bonelli’s Warbler being the only Phylloscopus warblers of the week! 

The Naturetrek format is relaxed and informal, daily excursions were undertaken in two minibuses and the days events were reviewed over dinner in a local restaurant each evening or over breakfast the next morning.  Lunch was invariably a picnic out of the back of the minibus.  This trip was a combined birds and plants tour and most of the group were botanists rather than birders.

Our hotel in Mertola was right beside the river and there were good birds to be seen around the hotel including Blue Rock Thrush, Spotless Starling, White Stork and Kingfisher.  The old walls of the town provided homes for a large colony of House Martins and Lesser Kestrels.  In the early morning the male Lesser Kestrels were display flighting from the nesting ledges and the sight of dozens of falcons soaring in the air together was fantastic. 

The grassy plains around Castro Verde are easily explored from the N123 road between Mertola and Castro Verde.  This was a superb landscape of gently undulating fields brimming with spring flowers offset by huge blue skies studded with white clouds.  The birds were more than a match for the scenery especially the male Montagu’s Harriers gliding gracefully on the wind.  Other raptors included Red and Black Kites, Booted Eagle and Common Buzzards but no vultures.  Storks nests on roadside telegraph poles dotted the landscape and provided homes for Spanish Sparrows.  Red-rumped Swallow, Woodchat and Southern Grey Shrikes, Bee-eaters and Azure-winged Magpies were a pretty impressive supporting cast! 

This area produced my personal highlight of the whole trip.  A magical 30 minutes began with a raptor called from our minibus.  While looking at a disappearing rear ¾ view trying to confirm yet another Black Kite, two Little Bustards flew through my bins, I was straight onto them and followed them down into the field next to us.  Everyone piled out of the minibuses to try and pick them out on the ground, this revealed a group of six Great Bustards on the other side of the field.  We got scope filling views of this group feeding and in flight and while watching them also picked up Stone Curlew, displaying Little Bustard, calling Quail and had Calandra Larks song-flighting around us and Woodlarks by the roadside.  Fantastic!

Castro Marim is situated at the mouth of the Guadiana River and is surrounded by Salinas which make it a hotspot for migrating shorebirds.  Unfortunately we had strong winds and intermittent rain on the day of our visit which kept us in the minibuses and most small birds in the surrounding scrub in cover.  No Flamingos or Spoonbills were present. 

Nevertheless, we saw a good variety of waders in small numbers including Black-tailed Godwit, Kentish Plover and the inevitable Black-winged Stilt!  Good views of feeding Hoopoe and Blue-headed Wagtail were gained around an adjoining farmyard and we saw Marsh Harrier in flight travelling between locations. 

We moved to nearby Monte Gordo for lunch in the dunes behind the beach where the pine trees held Serin and a freshwater pool produced a very smart Black Tern - bird of the day for me.

This area on the Alvor estuary was perhaps the best coastal site we visited.  The variety of habitats is tremendous including a shallow sandy estuary, abandoned salinas and a headland with small fields, scrub and pine woods.  We saw a good variety of herons, waders, terns and a few warblers.   

The estuary was good for terns and we were extremely fortunate to find and, after much scoping and deliberation, identify three Roseate Terns on a sandbar.  The Caspian Terns were easier to ID and the Sandwich Terns came much closer.  Oystercatchers and Whimbrels were also making good use of the sandy shallows. 

The Salinas were great for waders and herons with Great White, Little and Cattle Egrets; Ringed, Little Ringed and Kentish Plovers, Dunlin, Little Stint and Greenshank while the headland produced Little Owl, Sardinian Warbler, Woodchat Shrike and more Azure-winged Magpies.

Sagres Point is a dramatic headland of limestone cliffs topped by a fort that housed the navigation school of Henry the Navigator in the 15^th Century.  Our visit coincided with a gale so strong we could hardly stand when we got out of the mini-buses.  This made sea-watching a bit tricky but we did still manage to see a couple of Cory’s Shearwaters among the numerous Gannets.  There were a few Shags and Common Scoter were struggling through the waves and a female Peregrine was charging about above.  Most impressive though were the parties of Alpine Swifts storming in off the sea on the gale. 

There were also Common and Pallid Swifts coming in, Choughs and Jackdaws wheeling around the cliffs and Black Redstart and Black-eared Wheatear around the fort.  We retreated a little inland for some respite from the wind and lunch in the shelter of a line of trees.  Later exploration of the adjacent heathland eventually yielded a pair of Spectacled Warblers but little else.

Barragem de Monte de Rocha, Ourique - a pleasant lunch stop by this lake surrounded by open Holm Oak parkland.  Common water birds and woodland birds present. 

Foia, Serra de Monchique - the highest peak in Southern Portugal with spectacular views over the Algarve, firmly on the tourist trail and with some ugly radio masts.  Our visit coincided with the arrival of low cloud so we dipped on Rock Bunting. 

Carapateira - our hotel was situated in a valley just north of the village.  Early morning birding along the track up the valley was quite productive.  Grey and Purple Herons, Short-toed Eagle, Alpine Swift, Bee-eater, Kingfisher, Nightingale, Cetti’s and Sardinian Warblers, Zitting Cisticola (Fan-tailed Warbler), Common Waxbill and Cirl Bunting were all seen here.

This is my personal list rather than the tour list.  It included 6 lifers* of which 5 were in Mertola/Castro Verde and my first Roseate Terns in 20 years!