madeira feb 2020 (1 Viewer)

flew direct b,ham to funchal jet2, car collected at airport and straight up to ponta del gardo staying at monte mar palace. i'm not going to do a blow by blow account i'll tell you what we had at various locations some of which we visited numerous times. ponta del gardo canarys and feral pigeons everywhere around hotel we had blackbirds, grey wagtails and blackcaps and a kestrel regularly, we also had barn swallows one day and red rumped another. a walk down to the harbour plenty of yellow legged gulls, turnstones at least five and a whimbrel one day. further east of the village is the old road which is blocked to traffic but a walk up the road gave us our first trocaz pigeons and firecrests.

madeira feb 2020 part 2

calhetta ylg, whimbrel, turnstone, grey wag, muscovey, kestrel and a presumed plain swift and a few other usual suspects, a whale watching trip gave us short finned pilot whales with young and dolphins with young and a distant cory's. machico no sign of any sparrows added collered dove and if you walk up the stream from the sea front by the bridge we had mallard, muscovey, sanderling, moorhens and common waxbills.

ponta de pargo ylg, barn swallows, berthalots pipit, buzzard, kestrel, red legged partridge and spectacled warbler. park by lighthouse head back and to right it says mirador walk until you get to the gorse we had the warbler down to three feet, the pipits are everywhere, partridge was down the cliffs.

madeira feb 2020 part 3

the botanical gardens in funchal weren't the best for birds but palheiro gardens were excellent head left from ticket office keep following signs for gardens until you come to a dried out fountain, blackbird, blackcap, chaffinch and firecrest less than ten feet having a bath and firecrests too close to photograph at times in bushes around you, head down to tea rooms trocaz pigeons everywhere and quite timid so good close views also one of two places we had robin. Laguna de baixo at ponta de sol stop in town foot bridge over road small pool hidden away here we had mallard, coot, waxbills, our only black headed gull, muscovey and twice had six grey herons flying past.
we had some goldfinch's in the hills and a little egret on a random beach we had a single hoopoe in porto moniz, ponta de sao lourenco saw only berthalots no sign of rock sparrow. on a random stop in mountains a large raptor landed and immediately flew off i would have said goshawk too big for sprawk but not a common bird so at a loss on that one. all in all 35 ish species whales, dolphins a few butterflys and bee's and thousands of lizards.

Nice pics