New species for Corvo again!

Decided to bird around the village today, which turned out to be a wise decision. Rather strong winds from the east were blowing so I decided to try a little seawatching. Went up the small lighthouse next to the airport and sat down behind it. Loads of Cory's were moving in the wind and within a minute I had spotted my first Great Shearwater for the day. An hour and 15 minutes later I had counted 24 of them and since all shearwaters were flying further out I left and checked the shoreline instead. Not much to see at all, only saw the Bar-tailed Godwit, a Sanderling and five Turnstones. I wonder where the Turnstones are some days! Here are about 30 around so they must be hiding somewhere else.

Cory's Shearwater

After checking the beach I went up to the rubbish dump to have a look at the gulls and it was actually quite nice up there today. Something like 50-100 gulls were around and easy to check. Found three Lesser Black-backed and two Greater Black-backed Gulls among the Yellow-legged. Ring-billed Gull in a month or two? When I was on my way to check around the village for landbirds I suddenly saw a big grey wall coming towards me from Flores - RAIN! Quickly packed my bag and walked back to the guesthouse. Got a little wet but not very much. The rain then continued for four hours so I had time to have lunch, take a nap and hang around the Internet for a while.

Adult Lesser Black-backed Gull

2cy Lesser Black-backed Gull (I think)

Juvenile brownie and Great Black-backed Gull


2cy Great Black-backed Gull

When the rain stopped I decided to have an early evening walk around the airfield. Took a short scan over the sea from behind the lighthouse again and loads of Cory's were moving since the wind had increased. When I lifted my eye from my scope I saw something coming flying towards me from west - A DUCK!!! Every duck out here is a good duck and this was the first time I saw one outside the crater. As the bird was going to fly by me at sea I had to make a fast decision - scope or camera? Within half a second or so I had started to change the settings on the camera and soon I was taking poor pictures of the bird in flight. Through the camera I could see it was a male Pochard type, interesting! When the bird flew out of camera range I grabbed my scope and couldn't see anything that suggested it wasn't a Pochard. When checking the pictures afterwards I could confirm the identification. This was the first record for Corvo and the first record since 2005 on the Azores, so quite a good bird!

Male Common Pochard