Sagres, Portugal, family holiday September 2019 (1 Viewer)

[PJSharp]

Some notes from our recent (8-19 September 2019) 11 day holiday to Sagres in SW Portugal.

This was a family holiday with my wife and our 16 month old son, with birding limited accordingly. That said the resort we stayed at (Martinhal Beach & Family Resort) and the surrounding area provided excellent incidental and short-spells of birding. If like me you are looking for somewhere in Europe that caters for a young child and non-birding partner, and that will provide interesting birding in the limited time you can fit in, hopefully this can help.

Our search criteria for this holiday were a resort that provided crèche facilities for an under 2 year old (which rapidly narrows options), ideally babysitting, and the suite of kit needed to look after a small child (cot, baby bath, stair gates etc etc), less than a 3 hour flight from London, decent weather and a family friendly atmosphere. Oh and some decent birding.

Anyway top of the list was the Martinhal Beach & Family Resort near Sagres in Southwest Portugal. This is an expensive place to stay, but the facilities and attention to the needs of small children and their parents are excellent, and I recommend it if this is what you need. On balance I would not recommend it if you aren’t going with children – you are paying a lot for facilities you won’t use.

Timing is quite important in terms of visiting this area, it is an excellent location during autumn migration for passerines, seabirds and birds of prey. Our mid-September visit was well timed for passerine migration, but a bit early for birds of prey, and this year also for seabirds. Personal highlights included a lifer Wilson’s Petrel, 10 species of birds of prey (and somehow I didn’t see Common Buzzard or any harriers), and regular views of Hoopoe, Wryneck, Nightingale and assorted warblers, flycatchers and chats from our villa balcony.

I logged my sightings on e-bird and won’t repeat day-by-day lists here, but provide some notes on specific sites and the pelagic I went on. The sites are all described in the useful booklet ‘Birding hotspots in the Algarve – Sagres and the west coast’ by Goncalo Elias.

 

[PJSharp]

Martinhal Beach and Family Resort, Martinhal Lagoon and valley, beach and islands

We stayed in a 2 bedroom ‘Villa Mimosa’; these have the bedrooms and bathrooms on the ground floor and a large kitchen/dinning/living room on the 1st floor, plus a decent sized balcony overlooking a small grass lawn enclosed by hedges, beyond this an enclosed area of scrub, and in the distance Sagres harbour. I saw 60 odd species from the balcony, mostly in the short window between dawn and getting our son up (7.15am to 8am, including eating my breakfast).

Birds seen from the balcony included Wryneck on at least 4 mornings, Nightingales, Sardinian, Subalpine, Melodious, Bonelli’s, Reed, Garden, and Willow Warblers, Common Whitethroat, chiffchaff sp, Spotted and Pied Flycatchers, Common and Black Redstarts, Stonechats, Hoopoe, Turtle Doves, distant Great Grey Shrike, Iberian Magpies, Black Kite, Egyptian Vultures, and Red-rumped Swallows, Spotless Starlings, Serin, and Red-billed Chough. Pottering around the resort grounds added Thekla Lark, Dartford Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Common Waxbill, and Raven. One morning I watched an Osprey with a large fish fly across the bay, pursued by seemingly every Yellow-legged Gull in Sagres.

Between the Resort and Sagres is a river valley which broadens out to a seasonal lagoon as it reaches the beach. At the time of my visit this was almost completely dry and the small pool was too disturbed to attract much. The valley does attract migrants, finches and larks, though I saw little new here – only Northern Wheatear. Another narrower valley opens out to the sea North of the resort, and this contains a fresh water lake with some small reed-beds (apparently recently formed, presumably from a leaking water or drainage main). This has lots of potential but held little apart from Coot, Moorhen and Little Egret on my visit.

Offshore there are a few small rocky islets, I often saw a few Shag resting on the most Northerly of these, and Grey Heron and Cattle Egret also roost on these islands. Sections of the coast are rocky and there were a few Common Sandpiper, Turnstone and Little Egret present on these. It was also relatively easy to see Northern Gannet, Cory’s Shearwater and Yellow-legged Gull on and over the sea.

 

[PJSharp]

Cabranosa

The track running up the left hand (West) side of the hedge is in better condition than the one on the other side. This track is the middle one of three that fork shortly after you take the gravel track from the road. As you get to the raptor watch point (a small rise, on your right, opposite the concrete trig point) there is a parking area to the right in front of the rise.

To the right of the parking area, looking at the raptor view point, there is now a small pond with water provided by local birders. This is viewable from the mound and draws in loads of small birds from the surrounding very dry landscape. It also provides some eye-relief from staring for small black dots in the distant blue sky. For a bit of variety it is also worth a walk through the pine woods and adjacent scrub to the North of the watch point.

I only had two one-hour spells at Cabranosa, which were not enough, in each case it felt like I was leaving just as birds of prey were getting going. However, I still got to see Egyptian Vulture, Short-toed Eagle, Honey Buzzard, Black Kite, Goshawk, Sparrowhawk, Peregrine, Hobby and Kestrel.

The pond drew in plenty of common finches, larks, Tree Pipits and a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers, and in addition to Yellow Wagtails, Common Redstarts, Pied and Spotted Flycatchers, I found a nice Crested Tit in the pine woods. I didn’t really have time to bird the hedge, but saw juvenile Woodchat Shrike and a few Hoopoe as I drove along it.

 

[PJSharp]

Vale Santo

This required more time than I had to do it justice – again two one hour visits, this is a large area and needs careful scanning. Highlights comprised Tawny Pipits, a juvenile Woodchat Shrike and a couple of Whinchats. I didn’t see Little Bustard, and only had inconclusive views of a probably Dotterel in flight.

 

[PJSharp]

Sagres Harbour (Porto do Baleeira) and Seabird pelagic with Mar Ilimitado

One of the dolphin tour boat operators at Sagres, Mar Ilimitado (https://marilimitado.com/) offers specialist seabird pelagic trips out to deeper waters offshore. They show dates for future trips on their website, and it is worth contacting them if none of these work as they may be able to put you together with other birders and run a trip on a date that does. This is what I did, they are a very helpful and professional business, and were able to get a full boat together on the 14 September, largely thanks to a group of Danish birders.

Their boat is a 12-seat rib (you sit in pairs along the length of the boat, all facing forward), with a captain and spotter/guide. On my trip both had exceptional eyesight (no binoculars), knew the key birds, and spoke excellent English.

The boat isn’t a perfect set up for a pelagic – you are low to the water, it isn’t particularly comfortable (quite hard bounces in a mild swell whilst travelling in and out at speed), and you can’t really move around. However, it is fast, you get to deep water quickly, and when stationary in calmer deep water you can stand and use binoculars steadily enough. Most importantly they try really hard to find the key species – we stayed out an hour longer than scheduled to see Wilson’s Petrel.

On the day I arrived at the port at 8.15am, half an hour before check-in. There is plenty of free parking on your left as you approach the harbour-front, adjacent to the dolphin tour kiosks, I parked here. A brief look around the various piers and slipways produced many Yellow-legged Gulls, the odd Shag, Turnstone, Common Sandpiper and Whimbrel, plus two Grey Wagtails.

About half-eight Mar Ilimitado opened their office (this is opposite their rather more obvious kiosk, and I registered, and paid for the trip. By 8.45 everyone was present, we were all issued with life jackets, briefed on our trip, and boarded the boat. As part of the briefing we were advised that many of the regular autumn seabirds were late to arrive this year, and in particular we were unlikely to see Great Shearwater (one of my two targets).

Soon we were on our way, and about ten minutes out encountered our first flock of Cory’s Shearwaters resting on the sea. We were able to watch these at close range, and pick out one or two Balearic Shearwaters among them. After a short while we headed out to deeper water at speed, reaching our first area about 20-30 minutes later. Northern Gannet were reasonably common, and we picked out the first of a reasonable number of Great Skuas we were to see. Poor views of a fleeting European Storm Petrel prompted the captain to ladle some chum into the sea, which drew in two more, but these remained distant (c. 100m) and didn’t stay long.

After a short while we moved further South, the captain spotted some Bottlenose Dolphins, which we approached for great views as the fed around and beneath the boat. Again we chummed in the hope that this would bring in petrels, this time 4-5 European Storm Petrels approached to within 30-40m of the boat, giving adequate views. I also noted an Arctic Skua at this stop. We were then offered the choice of staying and chumming in this area for longer, or trying further South, we opted for the latter.

Ten minutes or so later a petrel was seen flying ahead of the vessel, this looked different and I was reasonably confident it was a Wilson’s. We stopped and chummed for the final time –using the last of the bucket the captain had bought. Over the next 30 minutes or so this brought in perhaps ten European Storm Petrels and a Wilson’s Storm Petrel.

Excellent views were had at 2-10m range, birds often pattering on the sea surface, and identifiable with the naked eye. For what it is worth, even in these conditions, in good light, with binoculars I couldn’t see the yellow webs on the Wilson’s Petrel, and it was surprisingly hard (but possible) to spot the longer-than-tail legs.

We then returned to the port, stopping to enjoy a pod of Common Dolphins, to check another group of loafing Cory’s Shearwaters, and finally to scan the small islands in the harbour bay (adding little).

I was very pleased with the views we finally had of European Storm Petrels and a Wilson’s Petrel, though had thought we would see more, and was a bit disappointed by the lack of other shearwater species. However I can’t blame the operator for that, they tried hard, we spent longer than scheduled looking for petrels, and sometimes that is how birding goes. I would do it again.

Happy birding, Paul

 

[MKinHK]

Nice report Paul - 60spp from the balcony alone is impressive!

Cheers
Mike

 

[3Italianbirders]

very nice, detailed report. Well done!

 

[rollingthunder]

Nice report - a very impressive list indeed.

Portugal is great, nice and scruffy, plenty of habitat = plenty of birds:t:

Laurie -

 

[PJSharp]

Thank you all for the nice feedback, all the best, Paul

 

[Simon Wates]

That's a very nice read and great to see folks enjoy the Sagres area, you did very well and got practically everything seen in the area at that time.

 

[davercox]

Yes, nice report indeed. My own experience of the Sagres area is limited to Christmas time, but it's pretty good even then. Would love to go back but I'm immobilised atm.

 

[PJSharp]

Simon, there were a few that got away - the possible Dotterel, I heard but didn't see Bee-Eater, and missed Booted and Bonelli's Eagles by leaving Cabranosa early. Others were reporting Golden Oriole but I didn't have a sniff of them or Spectacled Warbler.

I should also thank you for your regular posts on this area, they definitely influenced our decision to visit. Had I not managed to sort the half day pelagic you were my next option for a half day birding to look for Red-necked Nighjar. Hopefully there will be a next time.

Dave, I would like to go back too, hope you are mobile again soon.

Cheers, Paul