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Bristol to Ruppell's Vulture (4 Viewers)

Larry Sweetland

Formerly 'Larry Wheatland'
I'm mostly writing a report of our current softcore dudely dawdle to store a record for my dotage, rather than to convey useful gen. It's certainly nothing like our last journey, Bristol to Kagu, here: http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100901&highlight=bristol+kagu It's not even as impressive as it sounds, considering that the Ruppell's Vulture in question is one we're hoping to twitch in Portugal. It's also a great outlet for my verbal diarrhoiea, and If we're lucky we might get some handy hints or meetings along the way as a result of it. We've also already somehow bumped into a bird that, considering the circumstances, you probably wouldn't believe, if Nicky hadn't got some pics of it, so that at least might make for a funny story.

Basically, after a year and a half of appreciating the UK, it's time for another foreign jaunt. This time doing one of the things we most like, pottering about europe in a van. Oooh, I can hear a Stone Curlew calling outside right now. Anyway, the loose plan is to return to England in May having pottered around Iberia visiting a few friends, taking in the Freequency free festival, and generally enjoying the freedom of life on the road in this wonderful part of the world, where there's still heaps of space and birds, and hardly any height restriction barriers.

As far as birding targets go, I particularly want to see four species that would be lifers. Snowfinch is probably my biggest bogeybird, being the potential lifer that is closest to Bristol 365 days of the year, and a bird that I've looked for unsuccessfully a few times on other trips. Ruppell's Vulture has been increasingly recorded in recent years, and I'm hoping to twitch one that is currently hanging with the Griffons at a site in Portugal. Southwards then, hopefully, after the festival, to have a go at finding an early Western Olivaceous Warbler. Then a go at finding Dupont's Lark on our way north, a species for which I have decided my dodgy views while sitting on our old van's roof at Zeida in Morocco aren't really good enough. Obviously there are plenty more birds I'm looking forward to, even being surrounded by Serins, Black Redstarts and the like in the morning is already lifting my spirits. There is also always a chance of course that we could get madly distracted and end up looking for Balearic Warbler on Majorca or Rock Partridge in the Alps or something.

An added thing I'm going to sling into this report is butterfly and dragonfly sightings. I'm perhaps rather dangerously freshly armed with european field guides to these things for the first time, so I'm going to be idiot abroad here in a big way. You can expect stuff like “ is this a female Humdinger's Mountain Clouded Yellow?” “Er... no Larry, that's a male Linnet”

Figured I'd cover the whole journey from Bristol again, to convey the feel of the gradual change in the birds.

So off we set, in our little white home, an Iveco Daily, bless it. First up was Blue Tit, as we said our last Bristol good bye, followed by a host of expected classic english fare as we headed down to the Dorset coast where we would base ourselves for a week or so while our van underwent some necessary overdue surgery. The most scary operation involved putting in 2 windows and a skylight, to give us more light and air during our journey ahead.

So birdlist in order of appearance, in transit to Poole (this time including intros in this report) :-

1.Blue Tit
2.Carrion Crow
3.Lesser Black-backed Gull
4.Herring Gull
5.Blackbird
6.Black-headed Gull
7.Jackdaw
8.Kestrel
9.Woodpigeon
10.Starling
11.Collared Dove
12.Common Pheasant
13.Feral Rock Dove
14.Magpie
15.Rook
16.Buzzard
17.Great Tit
18.Raven
19.Sparrowhawk
20.Robin
21.House Sparrow
22.Lapwing

While based in Poole we cruised around on our bikes, fitting in some birding at Holes Bay and Hatch Pond. Holes Bay's a great spot in Poole Harbour, which produced a smart adult Yellow-legged Gull, a flock of 107 Avocets being put up by a Peregrine, hundreds of Black-tailed Godwits, and other goodies such as a Golden Plover, Knot (12), Red-breasted Merganser (2), Goldeneye, Little Egrets, good numbers of Pintail, Teal, Wigeon and Redshank etc. We also experienced the first grip off of the trip, bumping into a birder who'd seen a Spotted Redshank, which we failed to find. Hatch Pond produced superb views of Bittern on both of our visits, with 3 individuals being seen each evening, one of them doing it's creaky funny walk close enough to completely fill the scope. At one point it gave us thast odd prolonged stare from eyes under it's bill, that I've only seen in glossy mags before. Amazing. We also saw a Water Rail and watched some Snipe there.

We discovered on our first night in Poole that a Yellowthroat had just been found not that far from Bristol. Shame to miss out on something so unusual so close to home, but not quite enough to make me feel I wanted to double back, but if it had been, say, a Cerulean....

We also did a bit of birding around our friends' place in deepest west of Dorchester ,and briefly visited Radipole and Portland Bill., with them. Radipole produced blinding views of, that's right, a cracking male Hooded Merganser, a fair few Mediterranean Gulls, and a few not-that-cheery birders who told us that we'd missed an Iceland Gull by 45mins that they'd missed by 5mins. Seawatching off the bill produced a couple of Shags, a Gannet, some Kittiwakes, and luckily as it turned out, a Fulmar, as we failed to see one on the ferry to Spain. A brief stop off at Ferry Bridge raked in some Dark-bellied Brent Geese, lots of Red-breasted Mergansers and, best of all, a couple of Black-necked Grebes.

23.Great Spotted Woodpecker
24.Mallard
25.Mute Swan
26.Little Egret
27.Moorhen
28.Coal Tit
29.Chaffinch
30.Long-tailed Tit
31.Dunnock
32.Greenfinch
33.Nuthatch
34.Goldcrest
35.Song Thrush
36.Goldfinch
37.Jay
38.Redwing
39.Siskin
40.Cormorant
41.Stock Dove
42.Pintail
43.Shelduck
44.Teal
45.Gadwall
46.Wigeon
47.Canada Goose
48.Curlew
49.Avocet
50.Oystercatcher
51.Black-tailed Godwit
52.Shoveler
53.Mistle Thrush
54.Redshank
55.Dunlin
56.Great Black-backed Gull
57.Common Gull
58.Yellow-legged Gull
59.Goldeneye
60.Tufted Duck
61.Green Woodpecker
62.Treecreeper
63.Great Crested Grebe
64.Grey Heron
65.Grey Wagtail
66.Knot
67.Golden Plover
68.Blackcap
69.Pied Wagtail
70.Peregrine
71.Red-breasted Merganser
72.Bittern
73.Pochard
74.Coot
75.Water Rail
76.Cetti's Warbler
77.Hooded Merganser
78.Mediterranean Gull
79.Fieldfare
80.Snipe
81.Bullfinch
82.Reed Bunting
83.Skylark
84.Yellowhammer
85.Little Grebe
86.Shag
87.Kittiwake
88.Gannet
89.Rock Pipit
90.Turnstone
91.Fulmar
92.Meadow Pipit
93.Brent Goose
94.Black-necked Grebe
 
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And onwards.....

With everything as together as we could get it, we headed for the Portsmouth to Santander ferry. One way had cost us 300 quid for us and the van, booked in advance. We had a day to spare though, and figured we'd go via the New Forest and spend the night there somewhere. This would also give us the chance to look for a couple of rarities that have/had been hanging around for quite a while: a Dark-eyed Junco and a Spanish Sparrow, both of which were pretty popular when they first made themselves known. I was particularly keen on seeing the junco, as I hadn't seen one for many years, and many more even since my only one over here, the Church Crookham bird.

On arriving at Hawkshill Inclosure I was chuffed to immediately have a Crossbill fly over and a Treecreeper land a couple of metres away as I emerged from the van. Crossbills put in regular fly-by appearances in small groups while we were there, but the junco wasn't playing ball at all. A small rather gloomy vigil gathered in the cold to observe the fallen trees famously frequented by the junco, stirring into hopeful bin-raising alertness whenever Reed Buntings, Chaffinches or a Dunnock or Robin popped into the zone. It wasn't looking good. I quickly got bored of hanging around in the same spot that was already pretty well covered, and spent most of my few hours at this site bashing about in the clearing flushing Reed Buntings, but no junco. Shame, as the longer I was there the more obsessed I became with seeing the blasted thing. So no junco for us that day, which as it turns out, was not to be the nastiest trick to be played on us by buntingkind on this trip up till now!

Eventually we got bored, had a last cup of tea by the fallen trees, and decided to go and look for the Spanish Sparrow in Calshot. This seemed particularly daft considering where we were going next. Seeing one somewhere it should't be however, is always a bit special. We arrived 5mins after a chirpy chap informed us that the sparrow had been visiting the feeder at the back of the close. I swear I've never seen so many Hose Sparrows as are in Calshot. That is in fact where they've all gone. This makes it harder to find one slightly different one. We'd just given up, and were walking back to the van, when we passed a birder who was staring into a small hedge at a spot only a couple of metres from him, at just the time when he announced “I've got it”. And there indeed it was. So the small bunch of late-comer fans all got to see this smart little bird, and only blocked the road a little bit. It was pretty awkward though, and only partially visible through the smallest of holes in the hedge, and took some people a while to get onto it at pretty much point blank range. It was great looking at House Sparrows more closely too. I also managed a BF tick here, in the form of JD-L.

We had intended to park up at Beaulieu Rd, but after a brief walk on the bleak heath we decided to head for a more wooded setting, leaving the site with just a flyover Redpoll to add to the trip list. We ended up by the pond at Fritham, which is also walking distance from a pub (we like parkups like that!). This spot produced some Marsh Tits and Mandarins, but not the hoped for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker or Firecrest that we've seen here before.

95. Crossbill
96. Spanish Sparrow
97. Redpoll
98.Mandarin

We boarded the ferry at Portsmouth and set sail at about 11am on Feb 22nd. The seawatching can be famously superb on ferrys to Santander, but not normally at this time of year. Small numbers of Razorbill, Guillemot, Gannet and Kittiwake looked like all we were going to get, but a pair of Common Scoter, 3 Skylarks and eventually a Great Skua were the highlights.

The crossing was rather rough, but by morning had become very calm, and the approach to Santander provided a spectacular view of the snow-covered Cantabrian mountain range from a huge distance. This got my “those Snowfinches are up there somewhere, I'll get you this time” juices going.
 
Arrriving in Spain

As we pulled into Santander on a bright sunny morning we were greeted by heaps of Yellow-legged Gulls. Rather worryingly I've been catching myself looking at these things more critically as this trip goes on. But they still confuse me. So we drove pretty headlessly through town with a plan to get some fuel and bread and find somewhere nice to park up somewhere on the coast westwards. A Cattle Egret flying down a street in Santander reinforced that “Wahey, we're on holiday” feeling. Our first stop after winding through some delightful villages was on the coast at Suances, where a party of 8 Cirl Buntings helped with that foreign feel, as did the sheer numbers of Stonechats and Black Redstarts.

We eventually settled at a very quiet beach called Tagles, with just one unbuilt cafe and no other buildings. Fairly bare steep cliffs, a bit like the north coast of Cornwall. Except for the 2 singing Zitting Cisticolas, a Dartford Warbler, 2 Tawny Pipits, a White Wagtail, the lots of flashy velvety aterrimus Black Redstarts and Yellow-legged Gulls all visible from the van. Our first Linnets of the trip popped up here. How did we miss them in England? We also had our first butterflies, singles of Peacock, and more surprisingly, a Wall. We felt great. The only thing that spoilt the night was being woken up by a couple of drunk lads in a car pulling up right next to us and blasting out music, shouting “Happy New Year” in spanish and screeching off honking their horn. It happens.

Next day we continued west. A stop at a nice looking estuary at Comillas added Whimbrel, Ringed Plover, Grey Plover, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper, Greylag Goose and Firecrest to the trip list. There were some Pintail here too. Our first Serins, with their delightful fizzy little tunes, appeared at San Vicente, where there was also a Mediterranean Gull amongst the LWHGs.

We stopped for the night at Poncebo, because Nicky had read about a spectacular 25km there-and-back walk to do from here along the Sendero Rio Cares. We did the walk the next day, and it must certainly be one of the most breathtaking walks I've been on. Dramatic sheer rock faces make it a Wallcreeper's wet dream pretty much every step of the way. Wallcreeper does apparently occur here, presumably away from breeding season as the trail is mostly only around 500m. Unfortunately we had no luck with it, in spite of Nicky's good past record for spotting them! Highlights were an approachable party of 16 Alpine Accentors, a flock of 60 or so Alpine Choughs, 7 Choughs, several Griffon Vultures, and a few Rock Buntings and Crag Martins. Dippers were a great sight swimming in the clear waters below, and Firecrests, Short-toed Treecreepers and Jays were in the wooded edges.

99.Razorbill
100. Guillemot
101. Common Scoter
102. Great Skua
103. Cattle Egret
104. Black Redstart
105. Cirl Bunting
106. Stonechat
107. Zitting Cisticola
108. Dartford Warbler
109. Linnet
110. Tawny Pipit
111. Greenshank
112. Grey Plover
113. Whimbrel
114. Ringed Plover
115. Firecrest
116. Common Sandpiper
117. Greylag Goose
118. Serin
119. Griffon Vulture
120. Dipper
121. Rock Bunting
122. Crag Marin
123. Alpine Chough
124. Chough
125. Alpine Accentor
126. Chiffchaff
127. Short-toed Treecreeper

1.Peacock
2.Wall
3.Brimstone
4.Red Admiral
5.Small Tortoiseshell
 
Snow snow snow

We were now ready for our first strike against the trip's first target bird. The evil Snowfinch. What happened here was mental.

The only information of any note we had for looking for them in these mountains at this time of year came to us thanks to BF's Motmot. This was that it wasn't worth trying the classic site at Fuente De until April, and that they were “more or less regular” in the car park at San Isidro ski resort. We decided to approach San Isidro from te west, in case any of the more wiggly roads were snowed in. As it turned out this was probably not necessary. We hit the snowline a few km before the pass, and a stop to let the engine cool down produced a handfull of Water Pipits. From here we could see impressive bare rocky peaks tantal. Where are you. The pass is at 1500m or so, and just before it on the Asturias side of the border was a big ski resort with a big car park. It was mega rammed with winter sports enthusiasts. At the pass was another car park with a bar and some chalets, 1km over the pass, into Leon, was the village of San Isidro, which had a small ski resort bar and large car park.

We spent the night in the car park on the Asturian side, but birded all car parks we had found so far, and around the chalets in the afternoon and next morning. A semi-adrenalin moment came when hearing a Crested Tit-like call around the chalets (Collins guide mentions one of Snowfinch's calls as sounding like Crested Tit). Calm was reinstated the second Nicky announced “Oh look, a Crested Tit”. We encountered few other species whilst looking weird and nerdy in the car parks amongst the sports folk, but these included Raven, Carrion Crow, Rock Bunting White Wagtail, Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Great and Coal Tits and Blackbird.

Around late morning on our second day we decided to drive down the road that led out the back of what we had thought was San Isodro ski resort. This went round the corner to the massive real San Isidro Ski Resort! The car park here was pretty much hemmed in by what looked like closer and better Snowfinch habitat. Surely this was the place. By next morning however, with the except of a few Alpine Accentors, including one visiting the tables by the estaurant, the only excitement had occurred when very distant very white birds were seen very high up the mountain to the right (White Wagtails?) and when nicky spotted a very distant Linnet sitting on a rock, that basically looked like a grey bird with a white line in about the right place. The scenery was rather dramatic though, and a distant scoped Chamois added to the magic.

Later that day, a friendly guy in the car park, when we tried to explain what we were doing, told us (we think!) that there was a small cafe much higher up, at the top of one of the chair lifts. We paid our 7euros each and went up higher, and deeper into Snowfinch territory. Up here it looked great, surely the perfect place to finally connect with this bird that I'd wanted to see for so long. As we ascended in the chair lifts, we could see that although the snowy slopes had prevented us from getting this high on foot, but from up here it was possible to access bare rocky areas with no snow. We could cover a couple of km of ridge tops that looked really promising. The minute we got off the chair lift and rounded the back of the cafe, we disturbed 2 birds. One was an Alpine Accentor, but the other, although only seen for a split second before it dipped behind the round concrete platform behind the cafe, clearly wasn't. For that split second my whole being was suddenly awash with golden joy and a final restful calm, because surely this could only be a Snowfinch.

Even in that instant though something subconciously wasn't quite right, and when the bird resurfaced I discovered that I had apparently been propelled into a weird parallel reality. The kind of reality where what is normal and reasonable, or indeed remotely fair, were concepts that appeared not to apply. On one hand my brain was informing me that I was at an altitude of around 1800m at a Snowfinch site on a snowy peak in Spain, where the only species of bird that looks remotely like the bird I was looking at that ought to be here is (at long long last) a Snowfinch. On the other hand, my brain was also telling me that the pretty little bird in front of me, that was bothering an Alpine Accentor which ought to right now be being bothered by a Snowfinch, was in actual fact a Snow Bunting. No matter how many times I looked up at the intense cloudless deep blue sky, and the surrounding snowy stony terrain, and the skiers swooshing past to diminish into dots far below, the bird would persist in looking like a Snow Bunting whenever I had another go at looking at it, just to make sure I wasn't going totally mental. No roughly, just very approximately, how fair is that? If a local had found it instead I would have thought that they would have have been pleased that it wasn't just a boring old Snowfinch. So I tried my hardest to embrace this wholesome philosophy. I found myself sending a text to Gavin Haig asking him to check on the internet how unusual Snow Bunting would be here.

Nicky took some good pics of the bird (hope to post them later), and we pressed on up the slope to the ridge, where the view was mindblowing in all directions. I scrabbled around for a km or so over stony terrain, but all I found was Alpine Accentors. When we returned to the cafe our little friend, the bunt as I was calling it, was still there. We tried again next morning hoping against hope that this time there might be Snowfinches. There were none, and the bunt had gone. So I guess we'll have to look for them in the Pyrenees in a month or so. Any advice welcome.

128. Water Pipit
129. Crested Tit
130. Snow Bunting
 
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Great to hear you're back on the road Larry. Looking forward to seeing these pix of the Snow . . . thing.

Best wishes to both of you for the trip.

Cheers
Mike
 
You didn't have to go that far to see Snow Buntings Larry ;)

I'm looking forward to another good read covering your travels.

D
 
Northern Spain

Thanks for your input folks. Glad to hear theiy're so easy Ads, and it's just us who can't find them :-O

Heading back west down the hill we were soon cheered up by a Golden Eagle and a stop in the sun to fill up our water at a spring. We then headed for the north coast and travelled westwards along it. A few Redwings were still knocking about, but a Swallow this far north was surely a sign of spring. I found myself looking through gulls at the hyper-quaint seaside town of Cudillero, and dug out a couple of Herring Gulls among the Yellow-leggeds. Maybe finding the buildings and quaint towns rather nice is a worrying sign of age? As worrying as looking at gulls?. More worrying is probably looking at Starlings, something I was certainly not going to stop the van and subject Nicky to. This meant that it wasn't until we got to the border with Galicia that we finally nailed Spotless Starling. The only starlings checked up until then had been Common Starling, but mant may well have been Spotless all the way from Santander. A Cleopatra and the very differently coloured Speckled Woods were nice additions the slowly growing butterfly list.

After treating purselves to a camp site at Santiago de Compostela, and enjoying this old city, we headed to the west Galician coast, and discovered the small Olveira Natural Park, where we spent the night. This is where we were hearing the Stone Curlews that I was hearing while typing all the last bit on our laptop! This place also produced singing Woodlarks (5), Zitting Cisticolas, our first Sardinian Warbler, and a smart flock of 100 or so waders on the rocks included Sanderling, Dunlin, Greenshank, Grey Plover, Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Turnstone and Curlew. There were about a dozen Sandwich Terns bathing on the beach, and 5 cute Kentish Plovers in the duney areas. A Goshawk lumbering by the van was an unexpected bonus too.

We then headed into Portugal, and progressively deeper into summertime.

131. Golden Eagle
132. Spotless Starling
133. Stone Curlew
134. Woodlark
135.Sandwich Tern
136. Kentish Plover
137. Bar-tailed Godwit
138. Sardinian Warbler
139. Goshawk

6. Cleopatra
7. Speckled Wood
 
Portugal

Crossing the border into Portugal was for us a step into a land where we are less able to communicate in the local language. A couple of Swallows at a lunch stop on the coast not far south of Porto may not have made a summer, but our first Swallowtail of the trip felt more like it. A stroll along the beach produced a roosting flock of c100 Dunlin and c100 Ringed Plover on the sand, and an adult Common Gull with alarmingly yellow legs.

Next day brought more dramatic changes to the birdlife, when we decided to explore the wetland area and surrounding countryside to the north and south of Alveira. I really wasn't expecting Greater Flamingos here, as the range map in Collins has them much further south. It was a lovely surprise to encounter maybe 600 or more of these special birds in this area. We stopped to scope them, and as we did so a Black Kite flew low overhead. Scanning the flamingos produced a group of about 20 Spoonbills too, and by the end of the day we'd also picked up 2 Marsh Harriers, a Black-winged Kite, a wheeling group of about 40 White Storks, more White Storks on nests, a Great Egret, numerous Little but few Cattle Egrets, Avocets, Black-winged Stilts, Cetti's Warblers, and great scope views of our first Crested Larks. It was great to be able to watch a male Marsh harrier hunting at the back of the van when we settled in our deckchairs with a beer at the end of the day.

From there we headed eastwards past Coimbra and up into the Serra da Estrela, where we've been staying with friends in a quiet valley for the last 5 days. The little cafe up the hill has wifi, so I'll post this when we next go up there. Our arrival has coincided with it becoming properely hot, so each day has produced gradually more and more butterflies. Highlights have been more Swallowtails, the even more spectacular Scarce Swallowtails, and one of the butterflies that I was most looking forward to seeing, Spanish Festoon. Rather battered Large Tortoiseshells are in good numbers, and there are a few Camberwell Beauties and Queen of Spain Fritillaries knocking about too. I'm glad to have had a chance to ease into the butterflies while there are few species about, as I'm already finding some of the id's pretty tricky, and getting decent views of some of them pretty hard. Not to mention not knowing what features to look for and compare to the field guide. Sorting out Bath White, Western Dappled White and Mallow Skipper took a while, and there have been a couple of unknowns that I hope to see again in the blue and fritillary departments. A Green Hairstreak, spotted by Nicky yesterday, was very rusty above, but doesn't quite fit Chapman's, so I've posted some pics on the butterfly forum section.

Birdwise round here the highlight has been another Goshawk. Also on and around our friends' place we've had Barn and Tawny Owls, Cirl and Rock Bunting, Serin, Short-toed Treecreeper, Crested Tit, Dipper, Crag Martin, Sardinian Warbler, Firecrest, Serin, huge numbers of Blackcaps etc. I've so far only managed to hear the iberian form of Green Woodpecker here and elsewhere on the trip, perhaps a likely future split.

In a few days we're planning to have a pop at the Ruppell's Vulture to he southeast of here, but it's going to be a hard pull to move us on from this lovely tranquil place.

140. Greater Flamingo
141. Black Kite
142. Spoonbill
143. Marsh Harrier
144. White \stork
145. Black-winged Kite
146. Black-winged Stilt
147. Great Egret
148. Crested Lark
149. House Martin
150. Barn Owl
151. Tawny Owl

8.Swallowtail
9.Scarce Swallowtail
10. Green-veined White
11. Holly Blue
12. Large White
13. Large Tortoiseshell
14. Small White
15. Clouded Yellow
16. Comma
17. Bath White
18. Small Copper
19. Camberwell Beauty
20. Spanish Festoon
21. Mallow Skipper
22. Small Heath
23. Western Dappled White
24. Queen of Spain Fritillary

some pics: 1. the world's most popular Spanish Sparrow 2. Sendero Rio Cares (oops, on it's side!) 3. the world's most annoying Snow Bunting 4. View from just above the Snow Bunting
 

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Hello Larry and Nicky Greetings from Devon! Great to see you've started up another trip report, looking forward to following your adventures, If you travel down the N17 towards Coimbra pop into my old house and meet the ex girlfriend, you would be welcome there. Lots of love and good birding!
 
Vultures

Thanks guys, it's starting to hot up a bit birdwise. Hi Kev, think we might have missed our chance to meet your ex, as we've bypassed Coimbra now, but life is life eh dude. Wish you were here.

Bimbling forth we headed for the site of our 2nd target bird. It took us a couple of days to get to Portas de Rodao, via an overnight stop by the river Zezere near Cambas. We'd heard about the presence of a Ruppell's Vulture at Portas de Rodau thanks to Simon Wates, who has been patiently helpful when we've been a bit useless!

Nothing eventful happened birdwise until we were on the N18 approaching Vila Velha de Rodao, when 2 Short-toed Eagles prompted an immediate lunch stop, where we also saw our first Red-legged Partridge (and a “real” one at that!). A Hoopoe then flew across the road before we hit town, and spirits were high as we approached river Tejo around mid morning. A brief stop at the bridge gave us our first view of the gorge, and the first few Griffon Vultures circling the area. According to an information board this site is home to Portugal's largest colony of Griffon Vultures. It was hard to guage how many were here, but we never saw more than 30 in the air at once.

We drove up the road signed to Portas de Rodau, along the north side of the Tejo, and turned right at the top, parking near the ruined castle. This vantage point allows you to view the circling vultures from above, against the hills when they are low enough, as well as allowing reasonable but distant views of perched birds on the opposite side of the gorge. By around lunch time we'd seen many Griffons, but it was rather laborious checking mostly distant birds in poor light against the sky. A couple of Egyptian Vultures, a Black Stork, a couple of White Storks, Black Kites, a Sparrowhawk and a Pallid Swift were spotted. Also plenty of Crag and House Martins, Kestrel sp, Serins, Sardinian Warblers, a Woodlark etc, but by lunch time I was getting pretty edgy, and had definitely stopped taking any time to chase up on any interesting looking butterflies that happened by!

Not long after midday it clouded over and out of nowhere Griffon Vultures started to stream in and spiral down into the gorge at a rate that was uncomfortably fast for processing. I felt that some must have slipped by unidentified, but at around 1pm I picked up the Ruppell's Vulture. I wouldn't say it stood out like a sore thumb, but at a distance with bins, it is instantly obviously “IT” when seen from above against the hillside in the company of the slightly larger Griffons when close to them, and the cold creamy (no gingery) plumage tones hit you when you've been gawping at Griffons for a while. Only for a few moments did I see it well enough to see the differences in the wing covert pattern, before it stalled and dipped out of sight, presumably to land at a spot not visible from the castle lookout. I felt that had I been distracted by Griffons elsewhere during the 10 seconds or so that I was on it, I could easily have missed it coming in.

We thought we'd try and see if we could get somewhere to view the cliff where it had appeared to land. After the classic Iberian experience of getting our van stuck in increasingly narrow streets in a village further west along the north bank, we decided to head back to the main bridge over the Tejo and go as far as we could along the south bank up to the Portas. This proved to be a good move. The weather started to improve, and some vultures hit the air again. This time I picked out a Black Vulture within the spiral, and after I was watching this for a whilke, Nicky noticed the Ruppell's Vulture away from the group circling low in the gorge! Much to our surprise it landed in about the best place it could have chosen, on our side (south side) of the gorge. We soon had superb scope views of this amazing bird, and Nicky took a fair few pics. Success at last!

We returned to spend the night up at the castle, with great views over the Tejo for sunset, some celebratory beer and wine, and a nice chat with a friendly local. In the late afternoon many Griffon Vultures were watchable from the castelo view point, as they perched on the rocks, but I couldn't see our african friend. I also failed to find it in the morning before we left the site. Judging from my experience, I'd venture that if you give it a day or so you ought to see it, but I can imagine it could possibly be missable. A few pairs of eyes would definitely increase the chances.

The only new butterfly noted for the trip here was a Painted Lady, and the overcast weather and vulture fever didn't help. Quite a few Clouded Yellows, Swallowtails, Small Whites and Large Tortoiseshells noted.

152. Short-toed Eagle
153. Red-legged Partridge
154. Hoopoe
155. Pallid Swift
156. Egyptian Vulture
157. Black Stork
158. RUPPELL'S VULTURE
159. Black Vulture

24. Painted Lady

Next we decided to head eastwards for a bit........
 

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Nice one!

At one point I was going to go for this(?) bird last year. Really wish I'd gone for it. I'd say that it's almost as good reading about you seeing it, but that would probably be lying. Oh well!!



Quick question, at what maximum range do you reckon you were able to identify the various vulture sps? ... ;)
 
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Dan

I would say that you can pick out the Ruppell's at about 250 metres with binoculars across the river from the viewpoint on the north side of the river if its in the colony. Its comfortable with a telescope from there. I went for it in September. I suspect that you'll consider Larry's photos more convincing than my snap with my 100mm macro:-

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=212144

All the best
 
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Dan

I would say that you can pick out the Ruppell's at about 250 metres with binoculars across the river from the viewpoint on the north side of the river if its in the colony. Its comfortable with a telescope from there. I went for it in September. I suspect that you'll consider Larry's photos more convincing than my snap with my 100mm macro:-

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=212144

All the best

Indeed, yep I can definitely pick out the Ruppell's in your pic ... (? ... erm ...) ;)

It's not that I'm likely to do a visit anytime soon, more wondering at what range species are identifiable...

http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=222076

And kicking myself. It's also quite annoying reading your report too as last year I was attempting some kind of big year, and I keep coming across birds in reports the last few days that I really should have targetted (at least 6 in yours if you include the exotics). Doh!

Anyway, we digress ...
 
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