Full Metal Birding again!

After resting yesterday afternoon I had new energy to work some wooded places today again. Weather was more Azorish today with clouds and light rain the first half of the day. This made temperature stay pretty low which in turn made birding much more enjoyable! Worked hard in Ribeira da Ponte and Pico until late afternoon. Loads of birds were active all the time, totally unlike the previous hot days. But the best bird I saw up there was one of the Grey Herons from Caldeirão that was out sightseeing.

This is what a juvenile atlantis looks like, a real piece of chocolate pudding!

Checked the harbour, airfield and beach area during early evening. The Bar-tailed Godwit was still around but apart from that the most interesting was the usual Turnstones and Common Terns.

Mani (Manuel, my host) down at the beach, probably checking for girls?

Ola Elleström asked me which the common birds here are. Sorry for not telling earlier! Here are the breeding species of the island as far as I know:

• Cory's Shearwater (very common, see and hear loads of them every day)
• Manx Shearwater (probably rare, found one dead so far)
• Little Shearwater (probably rare, not seen yet)
• Bulwer's Petrel (probably rare, not seen yet)
• Band-rumped Storm-petrel (probably rare, not seen yet)
• Quail (pretty common I think but have stopped singing now, heard a few the first days)
• Common Snipe (scarce in Caldeirão, see 5-10 on every visit there)
• Woodcock (scarce, see about 1 daily)
• Yellow-legged Gull (common, see about 100 daily)
• Common Tern (common, see about 30 daily)
• Roseate Tern (rare, not seen yet,guess they've departed south for winter)
• Feral Pigeon (unfortunately common, see about 100 daily)
• Wood Pigeon (pretty scarce, see 5-10 daily)
• Grey Wagtail (common, se 10's daily)
• Blackbird (common, see about 100 daily)
• Blackcap (very common, see about 100 daily)
• Starling (very common, see about 100 daily)
• House Sparrow (common in the village where you see 100's)
• Chaffinch (very common, see 100's daily)
• Atlantic Canary (very common, see 100's daily)
• Goldfinch (scarce, see about 1 daily)

Apart from these I also see a few Ruddy Turnstones every time I go to check the beach area, not sure whether they breed or not though. I also know Northern Wheatear has bred at least once. On a normal day of 8 hours birding in the ribeiras I see about 10-12 species, similar to Falsterbo or Ottenby!

Birds

Grey Heron 1 juvenile, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 adult female

Calm day

Got a somewhat odd lift up today, sitting back on a 4-wheel motorcycle with my tripod over my shoulder. Wish someone had taken a picture of it! Did the lower parts of Cantinho, Cancelas and some of Fojo today before I went back pretty early in the afternoon, as usul without finding anything. The low pressures are moving to far north over the Atlantic, PLEASE give me a direct hit down here!

What's cookin' good lookin'?

Feeling pretty thick in nose and throat and overall very tired I had a two hour powernap in the afternoon and skipped evening birding. Is that what happens when you bird hard for 17 days in a row? Anyway, new day tomorrow!

Birds

NADA!

Shitty day!

Broken Coolpix, broken memory card for my 50D, broken trousers, soar feat, closed store and absolutely no American birds at all. That's pretty much what today's been about.


Once again a day with good, boring, to hot weather. Manuel drove me to the end of the "middle" road today. I walked out to the lighthouse to check it out. Not very much to see, one of the smallest lighthoueses I've ever seen. Birded the nearby area and a few small ribeiras as I slowly was moving back towards the village. Birded the upper parts of Cantinho and Cancelas for quite a few hours but found nada. It's really hard work up there these days, the heat and humidity makes you sweat like crazy when walking up and down in the rough terrain. Up there my camera once again (has happened twice before) got fucked up and said the memory card was corrupt so I couldn't use it for the rest of the day. Gonna send an email to the boys who sold it to me and get them to send a new card out here!

The small lighthouse in the northeast part of the island. Note that earth is round (for those of you who missed that!).

Had a little bit of luck though and got a ride back down to the village. Very much needed since my feet were hearting a lot. When I got down there I went to the shop that of course had closed for the day. Made a short visit to the beach and airfield but nothing of interest today. When I got back to the guesthouse I discovered that my trousers were broken, I had ripped up a big hole and showed half my ass all day. Borrowed neadle and thread from Manuels wife and got them back in decent shape after an hour or so.

Had an ok dinner at one of the restaurants and when I got home I discovered that the zoom button on my coolpix had died. Maybe not very surprising since the camera is soon seven years old, but still very annoying and very bad timing!




Jan Kåre left the island today for a few days on Sao Miguel before he goes back to Norway. So now I'm the only birder in the island which of course is a big responsibility. Gonna try the lower parts of Cantinho, Cancelas and Fojo tomorrow I think! If I get up there... Manuel is on Faial today and tomorrow so I hope I'll be able to catch a ride with one of the farmers tomorrow morning. Ciao!


Birds
Lesser black-backed gull 1 adult

Nice day in the crater

Good weather met us as we woke up today, which is necessary if you're going to the crater lakes. Up there the crater was filled with beautiful fog that soon disappeared after the sun came up. The best bird in the crater was a juvenile Least Sandpiper. Other waders were two Pecs, three White-rumps and the usual Common Snipes. The Great Egret was of course also there.

Jan Kåre Ness viewing the crater.

Waders paradise!

American Great Egret in flight

White-rumped Sandpiper

Juvenile Pec

Juvenile Least Sand

The two Ring-necked Ducks where still there and we also got a little better views of the Mallard flock today. There were 28 birds in total of which two look like Black Duck hybrids. Also checked out a corpse I scoped out on my last visit and it turned out to be a Manx Shearwater, possibly a breeding species on the island?

Black Duck hybrid

Very dead Manx Shearwater

We climbed the slope west of the lakes to see what was on the other side of the edge. Not much! Just very steep cliffs pretty much. On the way back I checked Ribeira da Lapa (or similar), the one closest to the village. Pretty nice one, easy to check.

Semi-interesting winds are moving over the Atlantic today and tomorrow. North of the Azores as usual but maybe it will bring one or two new birds.

Birds

American Great Egret 1, Ring-necked Duck 2, Mallard 26, Mallard x American Black Duck 2, Least Sandpiper 1 1cy, Pectoral Sandpiper 2 1cy, White-rumped Sandpiper 3, Common Snipe 5, Manx Shearwater 1 dead

Another day on the east side

This morning the weather was better then yesterday, so I went up to the valleys on the east side again. Birded Ribeira da Poso de Agua and the upper parts of Fojo until the heat got to strong early afternoon. Then I needed to go someplace cooler and decided to give Ribeira da Ponte another try. That Ribeira is quite deep and thereby shaded and rather cool. Rare birds however were absent there as well. After eight hours of birding I lifted back with one of the farmers that happened to pass by as usual and had a short siesta at the guesthouse. It's amazing how helpful and kind people are out here. So far I've only been denied lift/ignored once - compare that to hitching in the rest of Europe!

One of the forrested areas on the east side

Inside Ribeira da Ponte

When I'd had my much needed siesta I went out again, this time to check the beach and the airfield. More Common Terns (50) and Turnstones (25) than the previous days was nice and yesterdays Spotted Sand and Bar-tailed Godwit were still around, as were a Whimbrel and two Sanderlings.

Love is in the air... Clouded Yellows

Adult Common Tern

The Spotted Sandpiper in flight


Moray eel for Larsa

Jan Kåre spent today on Flores driving around and checking the good areas, unfortunately without finding anything rare. Tomorrow is his last full day on Corvo and we'll go up to the Caldeira if the weather allows us. Hope some new waders have arrived!

Birds

Spotted Sandpiper 1 1cy, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 ad female, Whimbrel 1, Ruddy Turnstone 25, Sanderling 2, Woodcock 2, Common Tern
50, Goldfinch 1

New species for Corvo!

Hôla! Me and Jan Kåre just got back from the restaurant where we ate the fish dish Bacalau, which turned out to be exactly the same as Norwegian dry fish, a dish served in Norway according to Jan Kåre. It was rather dry and very salt, but still tasty!

The birding day today began a bit different than usual. Since the oldest man on the island (96 years!) had died, Manuel had to go to his funeral this morning and couldn't act driver. Therefore I hitched up to the end of the middle road (via the nice drivers eight cows that we fed first). Down in the village the weather was pretty good with clouds hanging pretty low so Jan Kåre stayed down here. And when I got up on somewhat higher altitude it was REALLY foggy! It was so dense it was even raining a little - welcome to the Azores! If it had stayed that way it would have been ok, but when we reached the end of the road the skies opened and it rained. A lot! We sat in the car doing our best to have a conservation, me speaking English and he Portugese. But after half an hour my driver got enough and we drove back into the village, where it still was dry. So I decided to bird the village today instead, just like Jan Kåre. When I got down to the harbour I heard a distant, familiar call from the sky and soon found a godwit flying high up in the sky. Saw it good though and soon identified it as a Bar-tailed Godwit - a new species for Corvo!

Adult female Bar-tailed Godwit

When I got up to the little lighthouse Jan Kåre joined me and we did a short seawatch together which resulted in two Great Shearwaters among all the Cory's, a lifer for Jan Kåre! Continued to the airstrip where the Bar-tailed Godwit, an adult female, was walking around eating. When we had rounded the airstrip and got to the small beach I heard a distant Common/Spotted Sandpiper and soon saw the bird flying away. It landed on some lava rocks further away and when we got closer we saw it was a nice juvenile Spotted Sandpiper. The winds did bring something! When we turned around after watching the Sandpiper a juvenile Great Black-backed Gull was standing behind us, a rather scarce bird on the Azores.

Juvenile Spotted Sandpiper

Juvenile Great Black-backed Gull

The following six hours or so the birding was pretty quiet with a Goldfinch and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull as highlights while I was checking fields, gardens, fig trees etc. I ended the day with an hours seawatching which gave another four Great Shearwaters among the Cory's gathering for the evening in big flocks offshore. Tomorrow the weather will hopefully be a bit better (it's clear outside now) so I can continue checking the valleys while Jan Kåre is on his day trip to Flores. Cheers!

Birds

Spotted Sandpiper 1 1cy, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 ad female, Ruddy Turnstone 6, Sanderling 2, Great Black-backed Gull 1 1cy, Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 adult, Goldfinch 1

Corn Crake!

Once again beautiful weather as it became light outside. Spent the whole day at Ribeira da Ponte and Pico, birding all possible places I could find. Quite early I flushed a Corn Crake in a field on the eastern slopes of Pico. Really fun since it was the first time I saw this species outside Sweden and not during breeding season. This was the fourth record for Corvo, all three previous were in October 2007. Apart from that the most excitingbirds I found was Woodcock 2, Quail 2 and Goldfinch 2.

Flores seen from Corvo.

Corn Crake

During late afternoon it became more cloudy and somewhat more windy. The winds seem to be somewhat better now then they have been the last few days. A new low pressure has moved east from Newfoundland, but as usual seem to pass north of the Azores. Better than easterly winds though and maybe it will bring something!

Jan Kåre cancelled his boat trip to Flores and did the Caldeira once again. No Citrine Wagtail today but American Great Egret 1, White-rumped Sandpiper 5 (at least), Pectoral Sandpiper 2 1cy, Least Sandpiper 1 1cy and Lapland Bunting 1.

Convolvulus Hawk-moth (åkervindesvärmare)

Birds

Corn Crake 1, Quail 2, Woodcock 2, Sanderling 1, Goldfinch 2