I hope the following will be of use / interest to anyone visiting Portugal.
As I was working in Faro for the last two weeks I took the opportunity to spend Sunday 22nd April in the Alentejo, with the target of seeing Great and Little Bustards, which would be lifers for me. As I did not have much time to plan I went with what knowledge I could find on the internet, which basically came down to birding along the road between Castro Verde and Mertola.
I collected a hire car from the airport at 7am and arrived in Mertola shortly after 8am having driven on the quiet motorway that links the Algarve with Faro, this cost €5 each way.
From Castro Verde I just followed the signs for Mertola and was soon on a quiet country road. Corn Buntings and Crested Larks were everywhere and Azure-winged Magpies and Hoopoes added a dash of colour. However, it was Bustards that I was here to see and although I expected no problems with Great Bustards, I thought that Little Bustard may prove slightly more difficult. My reasoning was mainly due to size and the fact that Great Bustards congregate in large groups, should make them easy to see.
I adopted the approach of stopping regularly and scanning, my first stop produced Red-legged Partridge and I heard the first of many Quail. A Southern Grey Shrike perched atop a telegraph pole was the first I had seen for probably twenty years, although I was to see quite a few more during the day.
It was at my second stop that I glimpsed what I thought may have been a Little Bustard just as it dropped out of sight behind a hill. I decided to wait and see if it would fly up and reveal itself and about five minutes later it did just that along with another two birds and it was immediately obvious that they were Little Bustards. They then proceeded to fly towards me crossing the road 40 to 50 metres away before turning and heading back to land behind the hill.
Having had good flight views I wanted to see them on the ground, but as these three did not look as though they would oblige I decided to carry on. A stop on a bridge over a river was rewarded with a nesting pair of Spanish Sparrows, a couple of Crag Martins, the first Red-rumped Swallow and a heard only Cetti’s Warbler. Colonies of Spanish Sparrows were commoner further along the road as they nested in the base of the White Storks nests, which were many on the telegraph poles.
A couple more encounters with flying Little Bustards, but I had still not seen any Great or Little on the ground. I then saw a distant couple of birds stood on a ridge, but without a telescope they were too far away to identify. (One of the problems with birding whilst on overseas trips with work is trying to fit the telescope, tripod and camera into the luggage with the computer and various files needed for work.) Driving further on I was able to get a closer angle and identify them as a pair of Stone Curlews the only one I saw that day.
A scan of a field on the right just before Sao Marcos da Ataboeira, initially produced nothing, but then a Little Bustard leapt out of the grass. Watching it for a while its head and neck were just visible through the grass, but then every few minutes it would jump about half a metre into the air, reminiscent of a Bengal Florican’s display I had seen on television, but not quite as high.
Having passed Sao Marcos da Ataboeira a lake on the left side of the road produced several distant terns, that I am fairly sure were Gull-billed, but it was whilst watching these that I saw my first Great Bustard, in fact a party of four. Whilst tickable they were rather distant and I wanted better views, at the same spot I saw another three Little Bustard in flight, these were to be the last I saw, I don’t know whether they stop flying around as much later in the or whether I had just been lucky up until that point.
I drove a little further on to where I hoped I would be able to get better views of the Great Bustards and sure enough, they were still there and I enjoyed them immensely. Walking back to the car I noticed a large flock on the right side adjacent to where I had parked, I can’t believe that they weren’t there when I parked and can only assume that I was so intent on those on the left side that I didn’t note. Counting them I eventually concluded that there was 29, although it was a little hard to be certain as when they are stood close together it was not easy to know whether you were looking at two or three birds.
Driving further on I passed a Lesser Kestrel on a post, but by the time I turned the car round and went back it had flown, leaving me with several Spotless Starlings as compensation. Driving back to find somewhere to turn the car around I came across the flock of Great Bustards again, but this time much closer to the road. I watched them from hidden behind a tree, but as I stepped out of its cover to walk back to the car the flock took flight, providing a spectacular site and I was able to more easily count 30 birds, before they landed just a little further away then where they had taken flight from.
Driving further on I started to concentrate on finding some of the other special birds the Alentejo has to offer. Calandra Larks were fairly common, I was never to see one on the ground, but the distinctive black underwing with a white trailing edge was fairly obvious in flight. I had seen several distant Montagu’s Harriers during the morning, but eventually succeeded in seeing a few birds much closer, surprisingly I only saw one female during the day, but a double figure count of males. I continued to see more Great Bustards and in total saw over 50 during the day.
Whilst stopping for a sandwich and a drink I was rewarded with a Great Spotted Cuckoo flying by, having earlier heard Common Cuckoo. I decided to push on a little further towards Mertola and was rewarded for my efforts when I found a Black-shouldered Kite perched in a bare tree, I watched it for fifteen minutes as it moved backwards and forwards along a row of bare trees on a ridge that ran perpendicular to the road. Giving precise directions along this road is fairly difficult due to the habitat all being fairly similar, but the kite was seen on the right hand side of the road approximately 200 metres past the first sign you see for Parque Natural do Vale do Guadiana.
I decided to head back towards Castro Verde at this point and try some of the side roads, the first I tried produced my first Sardinian Warbler of the day, but it was the second that really cam up trumps. This was actually a crossroads and whilst I cannot remember where it was signposted to, I also cannot remember there being any other crossroads. At this crossroads I turned right, (at the time I was heading towards Castro Verde from Mertola), about a mile along here I stopped to watch a Black Kite and became aware of a kettle of raptors forming in the distance. I could see that there was at least one Black Vulture and several Griffon Vultures, but having driven the car closer to where they were the kettle had vanished, although I did have three Griffon Vultures pass over a short time later.
Driving back towards the cross-roads a stop to look at another Great Bustard was made doubly rewarding when a Short-toed Eagle flew low over head. Back on the main road I ran into a group of birders having lunch that had not seen any Great Bustards, so having given them directions to where I had just seen one I continued towards Castro Verde. As I came over a hill I recognised the area where I had seen the large flock of Great Bustards that morning and sure enough they were still there, so I drove back and fetched the other birders, who were most grateful. The spot where this flock had spent most of the day was on the left side of the road a couple of miles before Sao Marcos da Ataboeira 100 metres after a white monument inscribed “Boa Viagem”, (when coming from Mertola).
I made a couple more stops on my way back to Castro Verde, which added a fine male Black-eared Wheatear of the black throated morph and a Tawny Pipit. I left Castro Verde about 3.30pm and arrived back in my hotel in Faro, having dropped the hire car off at the airport just before 5.00pm. I had had an excellent days birding with lots of year birds, giving my year list the boost it needed to achieve my target of surpassing a 1,000 species in a calendar year.
Species List
Cattle Egret - Common
Grey Heron - 1
White Stork - Common
Mallard - 5
Black Kite - 10 to 15
Black-shouldered Kite - 1
Short-toed Eagle - 3
Black Vulture – 1
Griffon Vulture – 5 to 7
Montagu’s Harrier – 12 to 15
Eurasian Buzzard -3
Eurasian Kestrel - 1 (There were quite a few Kestrels, but I only paid attention until I had seen my first Lesser)
Lesser Kestrel - 1
Red-legged Partridge - Common
Common Quail – Common (Heard only)
Eurasian Coot - 2
Common Moorhen - 1
Great Bustard – 50+
Little Bustard – 10 to 12
Black-winged Stilt - 2
Stone Curlew - 2
Little Ringed Plover - 1
Gull-billed Tern - 3
Collared Dove - 10
Great Spotted Cuckoo - 1
Common Cuckoo – 1 (Heard only
Little Owl - 3
Pallid Swift – Common around towns
Hoopoe – 15 to 20
European Bee-eater - 3
Crested Lark - Common
Calandra Lark – 10+
Crag Martin - 2
House Martin – 10+
Red-rumped Swallow - 5
Barn Swallow - Common
Tawny Pipit - 1
Common Stonechat – 4 to 6
Black-eared Wheatear - 1
Great Reed Warbler – 1 (Heard only)
Cetti’s Warbler – 1 (Heard only)
Sardinian Warbler - 2
Zitting Cisticola – 3 (Heard only)
Blue Tit - 1
Southern Grey Shrike - 10
Woodchat Shrike - 10
Azure-winged Magpie - Common
Carrion Crow - 5
Raven - 1
Spotless Starling – 15 to 20
Spanish Sparrow - Common
House Sparrow – Several in towns
Serin – 2 (Heard Only)
Goldfinch – 5 to 10
Corn Bunting – Very common
Nice, I wish my (about to be uploaded) Lagos report was as full :)
Great report Mark, an excellent area full of good birds.
John