Three lifers!

1) Pictures of the Yellow Warbler can be seen on both Darryls (http://gwentbirding.blogspot.com/) and Peters (http://peteralfreybirdingnotebook.blogspot.com/) blogs.

2) Yesterday evening me and Vincent compared pictures of Black-throated Greens from Fojo and da Ponte and they turned out to be two different individuals without doubt! Number 4 and 5 for the WP that is!

3) Today...

...it's half time! I've been here 1 month and 1 day and will stay for another 1 month and 1 day. Today was also the best day so far with Common Yellowthroat, American Yellow Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, American Redstart, Bobolink, Indigo Buntings, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Ovenbird, Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Baltimore Oriole! IMPRESSIVE! I didn't see all that of course, but was pretty lucky anyway I think.

After breakfast Fred found an Indigo Bunting close to the Guesthouse. I was there within 30 seconds and got to see a small, brown bird fly away, but nothing more :(

Started birding around the village with Pierre and Vincent to look for the Cormorant from yesterday and kick some fields. No sign of the cormorant but Pierre found a Common Yellowthroat in the tamarisks south of the airstrip. Lucky for me I was only 50 m from him and got excellent views of the bird for about ten seconds before it dropped down into the tamarisk again and disappeared. Nice! Also saw the American Great White Egret that apparently is a new bird since the one from last year was seen at the same time in the Caldeira today.

Inhabitants of the fields.

Got a ride up to the valleys by Manuel and soon picked up Hugues below do Vinte. Found out that he had seen a Yellow-billed Cuckoo east of Pico so jumped out of the car and went down there. Within minutes I saw the cuckoo flying by pretty close - nice no2! Despite staying another hour I only saw it briefly in flight again. Went up to da Ponte and exchanged some bullshit with the lads up there for 15 minutes or so before Darryls Indigo Bunting came flying and landed in the Indigo tree. Nice no3! Quite cute actually, thought it would be a boring bird to be honest. After that birded the upper part of da Ponte and the small lousy and almost bird-empty forest between da Ponte and do Vinte before I went down to have a second look at the cuckoo. Saw the bird immediately perched in a bush pretty far away. I looked down for a second to grab my camera and when I looked up the bird was gone. Hope it stays so I can see it again.

On my way back I once again picked up heavy radio traffic as I approached the village. Pete had found a Baltimore Oriole! Ran all the way down to where the bird had been seen but missed it (just like everyone else who went for it). But with three ticks in one day I can't complain! Hopefully the bird will turn up near the village tomorrow.

Iceland seems to get the low pressure direct hits but we might get som kick-ass jetstreams after the weekend.

Birds

Common Yellowthroat 1, Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1, Indigo Bunting 1, Grey Heron 1, American Great Egret 1, Grey Plover 1, Whimbrel 1, Northern Wheatear 1