Madeira (5 Viewers)

[dandsblair]

We have 8 days in Madeira just after Easter. A couple of questions.

Does anyone have experience of the Thursday night Zino Petrel tour? Is it worth doing as there are spaces when we are there.

Is Palheiro Gardens still the easiset place to connect with the Pigeon, Firecrest and Chaffinch?

thanks

 

[foresttwitcher]

All I can say is that I regret not doing the evening Zino's trip as I didn't see any on four consecutive pelagics. However, as I understand it, you may just see silhouettes overhead.

 

[James Lowther]

I’ve done the night tour, it was a good experience, I think your chances of seeing anything resembling a petrel are slim but you should hear them, if you’re lucky you might get Madeiran barn owl on the way back
James

 

[James Lowther]

Pigeon and firecrest both fairly easy in the gardens, I don’t remember if we saw chaffinch there but we definitely saw them at ribeiro frio
James

 

[Bismarck Honeyeater]

All three are easy in Palheiro gardens.
I didn’t bother with the night tour -I suspect it is as others say. I did sleep with my windows open and heard some weird call one night, I don’t recall what it sounded like but it could have been ZP or Cory’s perhaps.
Check the Windbirds website for likelihood of seeing them at sea in April, I saw double-figures in June.

 

[sneil]

We have 8 days in Madeira just after Easter. A couple of questions.

Does anyone have experience of the Thursday night Zeno Petrel tour? Is it worth doing as there are spaces when we are there.

Is Palheiro Gardens still the easiset place to connect with the Pigeon, Firecrest and Chaffinch?

thanks

Monte palace gardens for firecrest and chaffinch
The Zino night tour will get you silhouettes and calls (one skimmed my head 😳) and the hike back to car park was (k)nackering !
The only place I got the pigeon was on one of the Madeira windbird tours (who are great btw) to the east of Funchal at the Sao Gonçalo headland

 

[abirdingguy]

I didn't go to the gardens, but I did the night tour for petrels. I went on/near a full moon and thankfully had cloudless skies. In addition to hearing them frequently, I saw them fairly often, some surprisingly close. I also went on the windbird tours and saw them there.

 

[dandsblair]

Thanks everyone. I have now booked the night tour.

 

[dandsblair]

For anyone interested
Pigeon, Chaffinch and Firecrest were all seen and photographed at Palheiro Gardens but not too difficult at this time of year in most places we tried
We were glad we did the Zino's Petrel trip, we were only ones on the trip, so Sarah's worry about keeping up on the walk back were not valid as we took our time.
The moon was very bright with a halo / ring, something Hugo and Katarina hadn't seen before, it gave us good light but meant we had to walk a bit further and the birds didn't start calling and showing until 11pm but we did get some really good views and lots of calling