Date: 8th October - 15th October 2015
Location: Albufeira - Portugal (Lagoa Dos Salgados)
Observation: A family holiday isn't complete without doing a spot of birdwatching whilst there. We stayed in Balaia Golf Villages and there were surprisingly ALOT of new ticks about including Hoopoe, Azure-Winged Magpie, Cattle Egret and Sardidian, some of these we actually got without leaving the apartment, which was lovely!
Pictures of the on-site wildlife below:
Hoopoe
Hoopoe
Sardinian Warbler
Azure-Winged Magpie (With Stonechat Egg)
Cattle Egret
Lagoa Dos Salgados was recommend to us so was a must visit, we used the CitySightseeing bus to get there about an hour from where we were staying. We visited on 11th October and arrived about noon, sun was shining. Before getting into the reserve we spotted the Purple Swamphen (distant but a tick!). Along the boardwalk we spotted quite a few tiny little birds using the wires and under the boardwalk to feed they turnt out to be Zitting Cisticola (Streaked Fan-Tailed Warbler), they seemed to be very showy birds.
Next tick for us was White Stork, we were told by the locals they don't normally stop of here in the daytime so to see a total of 87 White Stork fly in whilst we were walking around was AMAZING to see !
Came so close these are non-cropped images!
A Marsh Harrier kept causing havoc for the gulls, waders and Coot's this called for amazing sights of flock of hundreds of Ibis's and more in the air! 221 Glossy Ibis were counted in one flock that arrived also! Along with 20+ Spoonbill washing and feeding.
221 Glossy Ibis's Arriving !
A few more new ticks for us included Crested Lark, Corn Bunting and Black-Winged Stilt, all stunning birds !
A few waders were on the shoreline on the exit of the reserve including Ringed Plover, Sanderling and a single Dunlin, who let you get very close to them, which was a change !
We were so pleased with our first visit we decided to return to the reserve on 13th October in the hope for better shots of the Purple Swamphen and to see the Little Bittern. The bridge entering the Reserve the Purple Swamphen was about 10 feet away, it didn't show fully but we got some nice shots including this one.
The White Stork, Spoonbill and Glossy Ibis's were present again.
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Little Cloud and Little Wind (Tropical Storm - Saturday)
Our Hotel (Balaia Golf): Hoopoe, Azure-Winged Magpie, Cattle Egret, Spanish Sparrow, Sardinian Warbler.
Lagoa Dos Salgados: Purple Swamphen, Crested Lark, Black-Winged Stilt, Western Marsh Harrier, White Stork, Glossy Ibis, Yellow-Legged Gull, Sandwich Tern, Cattle Egret, Little Egret, Kingfisher, Streaked Fan-Tailed Warbler, Corn Bunting, Linnet.
With a total of 9 new ticks for the both of us it was a successful birding trip and would recommend this reserve (Lagoa Dos Salgados) to anyone visiting the area.
Thanks For Reading !
