Raptors, Sagres area, Portugal today, 22nd October (1 Viewer)

A large flock of mainly Griffon Vultures covering a large arc of the horizon, just a few came close to the hilltop, including what I think are a Buzzard and Short-toed Eagle without bars on the tail (is it a young one?). The Griffon Vultures were over the main road from Sagres to V do Bisbo (about half way) while on the way to lunch. There was talk amongst other observers that a Ruppells Vulture was amongst this flock so I zoomed out to get more birds in the frame and cropped out these 3 birds, one of which is much darker than any of the others in the full frame, so might it be the Ruppells? I have loads more pics to go through on a bigger screen when I get home. Also have good pics of a lone Griffon sitting on a pylon beside the road near the same spot.

Agree with the 2nd two of your IDs. The Short-toed is a juv. - check trailng edge, all evenly tipped, however most juvs. have pale heads, few have an adult type head like your.s. The bars often don't show on a closed tail.

The darker bird is a Griffon too I'm afraid - there is quite a lot of variation, mainly age related (older birds tend to be paler). Rüppell's in this light would stand out obviously - they're only difficult in tricky lighting (which often happens).

Funnily enough, I was at Cabranosa today and spotted one of the Rüppell's in the distance (c1km) - but crappy views and difficult to pick up for my friend. I decided to rush down the road in the car and chase them - turning of at a farm entrance some 3kms out of Sagres. Here we watched the Griffons (approx 900 - or more!) as they glided slowly around 50 metres above us in an endless trail - superb views but best of all were 3 different Rüppell's Vultures that showed beautifully - unfortunately none of the 3 of us there could take photos but we watched them brilliantly.

We must have been very close to you because we could see the lone (very tired!!) Griffon on the pole. It flew off and joined Griffons.

I'm sorry to tell you this tale - you were so close to the Rüppell's - if you are around tomorrow they roosted in the area and should be around again - Cabranosa is the spot to wait at by the way, although sometimes its worth driving to the Griffons you can see in the distance but also often fails as they drift away.

Thanks Simon, I was the one with the floppy hat. Need to search through the rest of the photos to see what was there, think I got the Black Kite in the distance but no Bonelli's so far.
We already planned to go to Cabranosa again tomorrow morning and the wind should be a little lighter.

Sunbird24 said:

We already planned to go to Cabranosa again tomorrow morning and the wind should be a little lighter.

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Good - I'll be out there on Tuesday again - east wind forecast, which might entice the Griffons away from Sagres, lets see Hopefully they will show nicely tomorrow, when they do show well, the Rüppell's are easy. We had a very distant juv. Bonelli's - likely around tomorrow too.

Anyway it was a nice visit, in under 2 hours we saw 12 species of raptors, 7 Black Storks and a lovely bit of visible migration with continuous Chaffinches with Serin flocks, Siskin, Meadow Pipits and around 50 Stock Doves, the latter being very scarce indeed in the Algarve except for these travelling flocks through Sagres at this time of year.

We spent the rest of the day with a little seawatching and looking for passerines.