The sea looked quiet at Cape St. Vincent first thing this morning. A few Gannets were passing, nothing like the numbers over the last few days. I watched for a while, seeing one Great Skua and two Balearic Shearwaters of note. My friends from Ecosativa - Jorge, Fer, Ana and Paulo continued the seawatch and they recorded a Puffin, a real rarity for the Algarve! I moved on to Atalaia where flocks of finches were everywhere. They could be heard passing over, going as far as the sea cliffs then turning around to land in the bushes on the headland. The most frequent calls were those of Siskins, a short-distance migrant and wintering here in good numbers. Female Siskin. Juvenile Siskin. Male Siskin. The call of a Wryneck led me to this individual, sitting out in the open for a change. Following a morning visit to the supermarket, we returned to the apartment in time to see a large vulture, already flying away to the North. I took a rather pointless photo and later found out this was actually a Black Vulture, seen by Ecosativa flying in and out of Sagres. After lunch, it was off to Cabranosa and another poor shot of a lovely male Hen Harrier, flying over the North end of 'the hedge', as I was driving to the site. All the previous sightings I've had of Hen Harriers have been females, so this was quite a special sighting for me at Cabranosa. There weren't too many raptors up - 2 Short-toed Eagles, 3 Booted Eagles and 9 Common Buzzards over the afternoon. A juvenile Black Stork came and departed on its own.
Together with 3 of the Common Buzzards, I noticed a harrier flying extremely high and we formed the opinion it was a female Hen Harrier. On closer inspection of my pictures, I believe this bird to be a juvenile Pallid Harrier. It shows four 'fingers' on the 'hands', pointed wing 'tips'. Traces of the white neck collar can be seen on the second image. Comments are closed.
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