BANG! And BANG!

In the morning I couldn't find my Sibley guide (Birds of Eastern North America) and asked Simon if he could bring his instead. He just replied that bringing that stuff gives bad luck so we went up bookless today. Went back into the valleys after the last two days interesting influx of waders, hoping that new birds had arrived. Rain showers kept coming every now and then, among them the worst shower so far out here that got us both soaked and cold. Fortunately the sun came out shortly after that big shower so we sat on a field in the sun for a while trying to dry up a bit. Did Cantinho and Cancelas whole morning but didn't find any birds, not even the American Redstart, so maybe it's gone? Anyway, while we sat there trying to heat up Simon picked up a small white egret flying around looking lost over the sea. A new arrival since I haven't seen any small Egrets here during my three weeks. And coming in during the westerlies as well! The bird never came close enough to see any details but seemed to continue towards the village so we hoped to find it again.

Started to walk back and had lunch at Fojo. After that Simon walked up towards the picnic area and I went in to check the orchards in the forest. After a while in there I saw a bird feeding, hanging almost upside down in some twigs just over the path maybe 15 metres in front of me - BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER! One of the most beautiful birds I've ever seen! Called Simon on the walkie-talkie, got my camera up and tried to take pictures of this absolute perfect, superb, mega good looking creature. But despite close range, good light and image stabilizer on my lens I couldn't get any pictures! I was so sky high on adrenaline that I was shaking like a leaf! I shit you not, this was probably the best rush I have ever gotten from a single bird! And as I'm writing this every single hair on my body stands up once more, I love it! Simon soon came and we got excellent views of this mega together (his 2nd on Corvo!) as the bird was feeding in the orchard for a few minutes before moving away from us. During that time I (almost) quit shaking and managed to get some decent shots of the beauty. This was the sixth record for the WP I think, so a relly good one!

Black-throated Green Warbler, 2nd for Corvo and about 6th for the WP.

This is what a big part of this game is about to me, getting that rush when finding a true rarity. And what a rush it was today! I'm glad we didn't bring any book out :) Now it was game on for us! What else could be out there!? After looking for the Black-throated Green for while we continued up to the picnic area and had a short break trying to decide what to do. The choice of site fell on Ribeira da Ponte to which we walked getting hit by another shower. After scanning the parts of the ribeira around the road I wanted to go down into the lower parts of the valley to have a look. We usually split up down there to cover as much as possible, me going up and Simon going down. I suggested to Simon that I could go down and he go up this time but he just replied that if I went down I would just find a good bird instead of him, so we went our usual ways. Afer only 20 meters I see something on a big tree, looking almost like a Tree Creeper in profile with a long, insect-eating-adapted bill. Got my bins one the bird and another dream came true - BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER! The bird was a bit tricky to see so I was really glad that Simon was right behind me and soon got onto the bird as well. It turned out he had heard the bird call as I got my eyes on it, the so far sharpest call I've heard from an American warbler as we got to hear it a few times more.

Black-and-white Warbler, 1st for the Azores and maybe the first for the WP since 1996?

What was happening? What birds were on the island today? When did they get here? And what had we missed? It was getting late so we went down to the village to have a look for the Egret. I went down to the harbour to scan that area and spotted an Eider lying there looking f*cked, proper f*cked! The jurney these vagrants do before hitting Corvo is impressive, so not strange they're tired when getting here. Apart from the general condition I think the bird had a really strange head- and bill shape compared to what we normally see back home. Have a look at it:

Common Eider. Look at that bill - American vagrant?

Went on to theck other spots for the Egret, and soon Simon found it! And it had a lot of yellow on the legs! Snowy?! When looking closer at the bird it unfortunately had grey lores and not yellow. But what about those legs? I think a juvenile Little Egret can look like this, but can a Snowy as well? I don't know. What I know is that the bird did fly in from the sea during a front passage from west with an apparent influx of American vagrants... Please comment! When watching the Egret we met Rafael Armada and Ferran Lopez from Spain who will be here for almost ten days. As soon as they heard about the warblers (or about the Black-and-white) they went up there to have a look for it, but didn't find it. Hopefully they will tomorrow!

Juvenile Little/Snowy Egret.

Birds

Black-throated Green Warbler 1, Black-and-white Warbler 1, Common Eider 1 female-type, Snywy/Little Egret 1 1cy, Whimbrel 1

A 1st for Corvo and more Yanks!

Birded around the village all day today. Got a "bad" start by finding a first for Corvo - a House Martin. We do NOT want European birds, we want Yanks! After kicking the upper fields and scanning all the fig trees, stone walls etc. we went for a walk around the airfield. Things soon felt better as Simon picked up a juvenile Pec and a juvenile White-rumped Sand together, nice ones! Both birds looked like shit in the beginning to be honest, as you might expect after almost crossing the Atlantic... They both gave very nice views as they started to feed just inside the fence next to the airstrip. These two and the waders in the crater yesterday signal that new American birds are in fact coming in, let's hope that goes for warblers as well!

Yank wader video by Simon. Filmed by hand without scope!

Pec with W-r in the background.

White-rump and Pec.

When we got to the lower fields i bumped in to a Northern Wheatear that looked almost as a flying peach. I have never seen anything like it. Here, have a look at that rufous underpart colour. Beautiful, isn't it!?

I've never seen a Northern Wheatear with this rufous underparts. Has to be a leucorhoa, right?

Winds are really strong outside now from somewhere around west, so I really look forward to do another hit in the valleys tomorrow!

Birds

Pectoral Sandpiper 1 1cy, White-rumped Sandpiper 1 1cy, Whimbrel 1, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 adult female, Barn Swallow 3 adults, House Martin 1, Northern (Greenland?) Wheatear 1

Caldeirão!

Made a new try to get to get to the crater today and managed to get in, even though it was a little bit foggy. Me and Simon split up and did one side each of the crater. I got the shit side and kept slipping and falling and only saw the Ring-necked ducks and the Pintail we saw in the fields the other day. Simon on the other hand had a nice walk and soon picked up a juvenile Spotted Sand on his side. A little while later he also found a very nice group of five juvenile Pectorals while I was pissed because I had slipped, again! All the waders from my last viit was gone and the new ones were feeding intensely all the time. When did they arrive? Simon also had a Wheatear, the fourth we see around the crater in just a few days. A little bit too many just to migrants, or...? After having a late lunch we walked back to the eastern side of the crater and decided to go around it one more time to really clean it up! Now Simon got the shit side :) I had lost the lens-cap for my scope somewhere in the crater and got annoyed everytime a shower came and made my scope wet (which happened quite a few times)... Anyway, when we met again Simon pulled up the lens-cap from his pocket and tried to explain that he's the man! Today I'm actually willing to agree with him. Thanks!

Probably my best photo so far of a Spotted Sand.

Pintail with Mallards.

After we had done the walk of hell up from the crater again it had gotten pretty late, it was almost 19, getting dark and the rain had increased... we weren't going to get back until LATE! So guess if we were happy to see a car coming up after only 30 s! Got a lift back down in the rain (by a maniac driver) and were pretty much soaked when we got back.
The winds are looking interesting the coming days, or what do you say about these jet streams coming from Newfoundland the next days?

Birds

American Great Egret 1, Grey Heron 2, Mallard ~20, Pintail 1 female-type, Ring-necked Duck 2, Common Snipe ~15, Spotted Sandpiper 1 1cy, Pectoral Sandpiper 5 1cy, Lesser Black-backed Gull 2 (adult+1cy), LENS-CAP 1!

Fog sucks

Had a late morning since we we're only going to do the Caldeira today. Weather looked good and I started with a short walk around the village. Soon got on to the Barn Swallows which turned out to be three. Unfortunately they all are European ones, which is NOT good! We don't want birds coming from that side of the Atlantic!

Adult European Barn Swallows. Note small throat patches, broad breast-bands and white bellies.

As we got up to the crater it was foggy and rainy so we had to do plan B instead. Too bad we didn't have a plan B! We took a walked a bit we north along the western edge of the island. Saw very much fog and rain but not many birds. Let's hope the weather is better tomorrow!

Birds

Mallard 2, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 adult female, Common Snipe 1, Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 adult, Northern Wheatear 2, European Barn Swallow 3 adults

The lost Swallows!

Like we decided yesterday me and Simon (the man!) did Ribeira da Ponte during the morning hours. As usual we found nothing, but we just have to keep on looking! It's out there somewhere. A few showers fell as we did the valley and that's pretty much how the weather was during the day. Either sunny and hot or windy and rainy. Waterproofs on, waterproofs off, waterproofs on, waterproofs off... Simon showed me some new spots for me. Good looking places! In the "Garden of Eden" I'm gonna find a Blackburnian Warbler after he's gone back home I think (since he talks about that species about ten times every day). We split up and did some different fields and small valleys on our way back down towards the village. A heavy showe came and I decided to get a lift down to the village, but after only 500m I met Simon and decided to get off. That nearly cost me a foot since the driver started driving again as I was getting off the car having my foot on one of the wheels!

Shortly after that I found an odd Starling flying over the Rubbish Dump. Starlings out here have a bad habit of looking like Swallows all the time, especially when they descend quickly from higher to lower altitudes. Anyway, this Starling soon turned out to be a Swallow as I saw the pale underparts of it! This was just what we both needed, some real action! After watching it for a while it cloned itself and there was two of them. Both turned out to be Barn Swallows, adult ones. But which subspecies!? To be honest I didn't know what to look for at all on an adult bird apart from the colouration of the underparts. Got some lousy pictures of one of them before they disappeared behind a ridge, comments are very, very welcome!

Adult Barn Swallow

We went back to the guesthouse and recharged ourselves with orange juice, coffee, cookies and fruit before going out birding again. We also had a look in the American and European books we brought and judging from the plates in those it seems as and adult American apart from the rufous underparts should have a bigger throat patch and a thinner breastband between the throatpatch and the white body than the European. Am I right? Unfortunately the pictures are too poor for this to be visible. Judging from the underparts it looks like a European one I think (both birds looked very similar, being adults with pale underparts), or can an adult American be this pale underneath? Comments are VERY welcome!

After the break Simon took a walk in the village (which gave a Whimbrel) and got a haircut while I walked up the road again to the Swallow hotspot arond the farmers' little houses along the road. As I got up there hell broke loose. The rain was massive! And of course no cars were passing by so I just had to walk back in the rain. After a while I got a lift back but by then I was already soaked and cold.

In the evening we head an absolutely delicious chicken dinner at the airport restaurant. Normally the food is something fried (meat or fish) served with rice and french fries and then spiced up with some extra salt and ketchup. You do get a bit tired of that rather quick. Tonight we hit the jackpot though, especially since it was the dish of the day, meaning that we had to wait about one minute to get our food. Excellent!

If weather allows us we'll go up to the crater tomorrow to have a look in there. Hopefully at least some new ducks and waders have turned up since my last visit there (11 days and an American weather system ago!), and maybe a yank passerine has got stuck down there? Both Yellow-rumped Warbler and Scarlet Tanager have been recorded down there in the past...

Birds

Grey Heron 1 1cy, Great Black-backed Gull 1 1cy, Barn Swallow 2 adults (ssp?)

Full Metal Ribeira

We can't find it! The new bird that is. We're working really hard out there but it just isn't paying off! Me and Simon did, once again, Cantinho and Cancelas real hard today. Inside, outside, everywhere! The American Redstart is still there and easy to see in the same spot, but nothing else. Continued to da Ponte where we did the lower parts for two hours or so late afternoon before heading back towards the village since it began to rain. That place da Ponte is really hot and I think we're going back there tomorrow to do a full morning hit. There's gotta be something in there as well! Did some of the higher fields on the way back. A few Turnstones and a Wheatear were around, the latter probably the same bird as Pedro saw a few days ago? In the village we had a quick cup of coffee at the restaurant and then checked the airfield and beaches before heading home during a massive rain shower. Saw the usual Turnstones and Common Terns and the Bar-tailed Godwit is still around. Smart as I am I forgot my bag at the beach and got an extra 2 km walk in the evening. Nice one!

Lava rocks outside the shore south of the airport.

September is officially over in a few hours. This first part of the trip was the big experiment part. Unfortunately I didn't have the winds with me. If I'd had that I probably would have seen more Yanks. A small low pressure system moving east a bit north of the Azores on the 17th-18th coincided well with the appearence of a Spotted Sandpiper in the beach on the 18th. And the system that moved through straight on us during the last days apparently brought at least an American Redstart and a Bobolink (and hopefully more!). The birds appeared to move in front of the system as they both appeared before the low pressure hit the islands.

Conclusion? September is well worth a go out here! But as always it's a big game with the winds. If you get the right ones, the birds will come, probably including a pretty different setup of species compared to what you get in late October, American Redstart for example. I was pretty unlucky during my two September weeks out here. Most of the time winds were easterly due to a massive high pressure that parked over the Azores. But when the good winds finally came, so did the American Redstart! Hopefully more people will try this the coming years and hopefully they will get better winds than I did. There is a massive migration on the other side of the Atlantic during September as well so give this a try will ya!


Tomorrow it's October and now we know what can happen - ANYTHING!

Birds

Grey Heron 1 juvenile, Bar-tailed Godwit 1 adult female, Northern Wheatear 1, American Redstart 1 (juvenile?) female

Hard days work in rain!

I take back that Simon's a robot. He is very, very human! We did a good try up in Cantinho and Cancelas today, a nine hour hit but only found the American Redstart inbetween the rain showers. That bird's really active, never sitting still and calling a lot so quite easy to see actually. After doing a few more places up there we got a lift down to the village with Pedro, the very nice local guy who knows some birds. Down in the village we did the lower fields are for two hours or so, but without finding anything. New day tomorrow, we have to find a new bird now!

A bit better today...

Birds

American Redstart 1 (juvenile?) female, Grey Heron 1 juvenile