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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (3 Viewers)

Per Facebook:
Spirits high! We are off to Cape Verde. 13 target species and a good potential of getting Red-Footed Booby, Intermediate Egret and the Black-Headed Heron that was seen some weeks ago.
Next will then be the Canary Islands where we expect to get our 750th bird of the year!! Fantastic!
Click to expand...

I have these 14 species as potential targets and wonder which of these they didn't consider. Frigatebird? Storm Petrel? Fea's?
Helmeted Guineafowl
Cape Verde Storm Petrel
Fea's Petrel
Cape Verde Shearwater
Boyd's Shearwater
Red-billed Tropicbird
Magnificent Frigatebird
Brown Booby
Cape Verde Buzzard
Cape Verde Swift
Grey-headed Kingfisher
Raso Lark
Cape Verde Warbler
Iago Sparrow

And for Canaries these are the targets
Houbara Bustard
Bolle's Pigeon
Laurel Pigeon
Canary Islands Chiffchaff
Canary Islands Stonechat
Tenerife Blue Chaffinch
Gran Canaria Blue Chaffinch

I wonder how they'll treat Nanday Parakeet. And apparently they'll try to twitch some vagrant Yellow-billed Loon and Grey-headed Chickadee as far south as possible

If they don't add any other (non-rarity-hunt) trip to that, this would mean that they won't have the following species, that occur in the WP on a regular basis.
Goliath Heron
Shikra
Pin-tailed Snipe
Caspian Tit
Algerian Nuthatch
Red-billed Firefinch
Scottish Crossbill
Pallas's Reed Bunting

plus these that should occur on a regular basis but haven't been recorded AFAIK this year
African Darter
Verreaux's Eagle
African Skimmer
Hume's Wheatear
Pygmy Sunbird
African Silverbill

And a few options of code 4 birds are still open, e.g.:
Rüppell's Vulture
Northern Harrier
Wilson's Snipe
Ross's Gull
American Herring Gull
Dusky Warbler
Pine Bunting

And whatever else turns up...
 
I guess that they'll have forgotten that IOC split Cape Verde Buzzard? Or have they given up on the Frigatebird? Every chance that they'll add a vagrant or two.

All the best
 
Richard Prior said:
Looks like they've decided to miss out Varanger and go to Cape Verde now:
http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/pictures/

Into the home straight.............:t:
Click to expand...

Good to see that they are on the move again! And that they decided to skip off Varanger (or at least change the time of visiting), I suppose chances for an "easier" gettable White-billed Diver are quite high. Good luck for them for all the "regular" species + as many vagrants as possible on the islands...
 
DanielDoer said:
Good to see that they are on the move again! And that they decided to skip off Varanger (or at least change the time of visiting), I suppose chances for an "easier" gettable White-billed Diver are quite high. Good luck for them for all the "regular" species + as many vagrants as possible on the islands...
Click to expand...

I would expect White billed Diver may well turn up in Sweden in the coming weeks, negating a long trip to Varanger. They may have opportunity to pick up other missed species, American Herring Gull would be foremost among them. It will be an interesting run in to 2018.
 
Easily twitchable Dusky Warbler around Lisbon at the moment. Might stay for a while (there are other records of wintering birds) because it doesn't have a tail.
 
buzzard12 said:
Excellent day one mop up, with just Raso Lark left on land.

A dozen more species required to reach 750.
Click to expand...

The lack of Bourne's Heron (the race/species of Purple Heron) is a surprise. A shame also that they had no success with either Intermediate Egret or the recent Black-headed Heron. But that could change and they should fit some more visits in to the main reservoir before they leave Santiago.

No seawatching that I could see which I found productive on Santiago at a different time of year:-

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S27734755

All the best
 
Not much added today, but several selffound MEGAs for Cape Verde including Black Heron, White-winged Tern and most interestingly Reed Cormorant!!!
 
Paul Chapman said:
White-winged Tern and Reed/Long-tailed Cormorant are firsts for Cape Verde (I believe)?

Black Heron is less of a surprise with several Cape Verde records.

Of course, despite the first sentence, one more endemic landbird for them to get which you do not get on Santiago:-

http://www.bigyearwp.com/index.php/2017/11/17/feels-like-africa/

All the best
Click to expand...

Photos of said Reed Cormorant https://twitter.com/TarsigerTeam/status/931794282951905281 and Black Heron https://twitter.com/TarsigerTeam/status/931797402629148672
 
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BirdingRob said:
About the Abyssinian roller in Nouadhibou, Mauritania. I have seen several claims that Nouadhibou is in the Western Palearctic but it well below the 21st parallel and not in maritime Banc' d'Arguin. I understand they are the only two areas in Muaritania according to Beaman et al in the WP. Of course the peninsula containing Nouadhibou is split between two countries. As I understand it, the northern side of the peninsula is in western sahara which is defined as WP but the south side isnt as it is in Mauritania but below 21 degrees north.

For me the Abyssinian roller was 5 metres outside the WP. It was in Mauritania in the allotments right next to but not over the border in Western Sahara.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the original paper by Voous (1973) in IBIS is neither available to me privately nor through my university, where I believe the reasoning behind the boundaries in BWP is explained. However I found a preview on Amazon for the first few pages of BWP and got a screenshot of this map.
The exact boundary isn't shown for the region you are interested in, but I believe it runs along the tide line of the Banc D'Arguin (does that mean it is different at different tides?!)
That would mean the whole Nouadhibou peninsula is within the WP. And any bird seen over the ocean at Banc D'Arguin and the nearby islands is countable, but isn't countable when it only flies over land.

Maffong
 

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