After the surge of Griffon Vultures and some following days with substantial eagle numbers, I have a feeling the raptor movement is coming to a close for another season. The last week has revealed a single Black Vulture which remained distant over Sagres one afternoon. Two juvenile Egyptian Vultures having been looking very forlorn as they continue to patrol the landscape and make little attempt to leave. I found one individual flying around Atalaia headland this morning and both birds settled at Cabranosa late this afternoon. More of a surprise was an almost adult Goshawk which flew in two days ago, much to the annoyance of the many Crag Martins which are making the most of the insect life at Cabranosa. This juvenile Short-toed Eagle had very little 'barring' on the underwing and an almost white head. There can be extensive 'variations' in juvenile birds but this made for a very white eagle! Away from Cabranosa, the young Common Tern shows at times on the black mooring buoys in Sagres harbour. It shares the buoys with up to four Sandwich Terns. The Polish ringed Tern hasn't been seen since and I still have no information back from the ringing team concerned. The first returning Purple Sandpipers have arrived on the harbour breakwater, two were seen yesterday. Also here were four Turnstones, two Common Sandpipers, a Whimbrel and a Kingfisher. This flock of Rock Doves were put to flight by the Osprey which frequents the bay and harbour around Sagres. Showing their diagnostic white rump patches clearly, these birds live almost entirely on the islands here and are probably as 'pure' as they come in respect to Rock Dove species. A new arrival on the lagoon at Martinhal (adjacent to Sagres) was this smart Little Stint. Dwarfed in comparison by four Dunlin, it fed happily with the Dunlin all afternoon. A new record for me at this site. Having swatted up on the weather forecast last night, I met the cold North wind on Cape St. Vincent for a couple of hours this morning. The result was an intriguing number of Razorbill flocks of between four and thirty three birds during that time. As always, these auks are well out to sea but thanks to my new camera, we can now ascertain that Puffins fly within these flocks quite regularly. The image below shows the three leading birds to be Puffins ( a feature seen quite often where Puffins led the auks along). The Puffins were identified by their extensive 'greyish' face (no breeding bill colour now), a black collar virtually circling the neck, a greyish underwing when seen and short, blunter wing length. Above, a flock of five Puffins with two Razorbills on lower right of group.
Gannets passed constantly, but not in the large numbers seen a while ago. One Great Skua and six Balearic Shearwaters flew South as did small numbers of Audouin's Gulls. I picked out four Grey Phalaropes with my binoculars, all flying together in a southerly direction. Back at Cabranosa this afternoon and some of you have kindly asked how I am finding my new camera/lens equipment. In short, it gives an improved means of studying detail - as could be seen with the 'white' short-toed eagle mentioned earlier. That in turn, makes you more aware of potential differences and how attention to detail will aid more accurate identification. Do I understand half the functions and technicalities? - No. Do I really need to? - I doubt it. It does what I expect it to do, it produces pictures such as this Crested Tit, swaying in that north wind with no post-editing carried out whatsoever. Just brilliant!! Comments are closed.
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